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Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln, Concerto Palatino - Biber: Litaniæ de Sancto Josepho; Muffat: Missa in labore requies (1999)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln, Concerto Palatino - Biber: Litaniæ de Sancto Josepho; Muffat: Missa in labore requies (1999)

Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln, Concerto Palatino - Biber: Litaniæ de Sancto Josepho; Muffat: Missa in labore requies (1999)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 316 Mb | Total time: 69:27 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMC 901667 | Recorded: 1998

The 17th-century Austrian composer Heinrich Biber is remembered today for his extraordinary solo violin music–collections such as the Mystery Sonatas. He wrote a number of large-scale instrumental works and choral pieces as well, but their reputation is not as high. They include a lot of grand gestures for brass, but they tend to be harmonically static and often seem long-winded. So Konrad Junghänel and his superb musicians have really achieved something by making the works on this disc sound so appealing.

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi - La Discotheque Ideale: Baroque et Musique Ancienne - La Legende en 25 CDs (2013)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi - La Discotheque Ideale: Baroque et Musique Ancienne - La Legende en 25 CDs (2013)

Deutsche Harmonia Mundi - La Discothèque Idéale: Baroque et Musique Ancienne - La Légende en 25 CDs (2013)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 6.86 Gb | Total time: 25 h 25 min | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi/Sony Music | # 88883719232

This is an excellent and varied selection of composers from the very well known like Palestrina, Monteverdi, Bach and Vivaldi, through the less famous but familiar like Frescobaldi, Sainte-Colombe and Zelenka, to the downright obscure. It is all delightful: the musicians are uniformly excellent, and include such great names as Gustav Leonhardt, Cantus Colln, Christopher Hogwood and so on. They give fine performances both of the familiar works and of the less familiar ones. Obviously there will be discs you like more than others and you may already have favourite versions of some works, but these discs are never less than very good and are often outstanding.

Alan Curtis - Alessandro Stradella: La Susanna (2000)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Alan Curtis - Alessandro Stradella: La Susanna (2000)

Alan Curtis - Alessandro Stradella: La Susanna (2000)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 461 Gb | Total time: 51:52+44:38 | Scans included
Classical | Label: EMI Classics | # 8 26539 2 | Recorded: 1978

La Susanna, a late oratorio composed in Genoa in 1681, the year before the composer’s death. La Susanna belongs to a popular 17th-century sub-genre termed oratorio erotico because it employed biblical stories concerned with love or the sensual aspect of women. It is typical of the kind of plot that might be used to attract an audience drawn to the prayer halls to be given Bible “instruction” in easily accessible form. The concept was a mark of counter-Reformation propaganda and stories such as those of Judith or Susanna were popular not only in music, but also literature and painting. Indeed, the cover of the present set is illustrated by a fine painting by Artemisia Gentileschi depicting the beautiful naked Susanna recoiling from the gaze of the two leering elders.

Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, Konrad Junghanel – Handel: Poro, re dell'Indie (2007)

Posted By: tirexiss
Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, Konrad Junghanel – Handel: Poro, re dell'Indie (2007)

Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin, Konrad Junghanel – Handel: Poro, re dell'Indie (2007)
EAC | FLAC (image+.cue, log) | Covers Included | 181:38 | 980 MB
Genre: Classical, Opera | Label: Göttingen Handel Festival | Catalog: none

Much has been said and written about Handel and Metastasio, and the composer’s supposed lack of interest in the librettos of the famous Roman poet. The fact is that Handel generally used adaptations of much older librettos which perhaps represented a bigger space of liberty for its work and conception of drama. Though Handel set to music only three librettos by Metastasio (Siroe, Poro and Ezio), we can hardly doubt he knew and recognised the qualities of their dramaturgy. Two of the three were successful and all of them gave him opportunity to write beautiful music.

Judith Nelson, René Jacobs, Concerto Vocale - George Frideric Handel: Duetti e Cantate da Camera (1989)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Judith Nelson, René Jacobs, Concerto Vocale - George Frideric Handel: Duetti e Cantate da Camera (1989)

Judith Nelson, René Jacobs, Concerto Vocale - George Frideric Handel: Duetti e Cantate da Camera (1989)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 239 Mb | Total time: 46:45 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMC 1901004 | Recorded: 1978

There could hardly be any contrast more striking than that of "Messiah" with these delicate miniatures composed by Handel during his stay in Italy before he settled in London. They are vocal chamber music of the highest quality. They give no inkling that the graceful young composer might later produce anything like the "Hallelujah" chorus, though there is a clear pre-echo of "For unto us a child is born."

Konrad Junghänel, Gradus ad Parnassum - Biber: Missa Alleluja à 36; Schmelzer: Vesperae Sollennes (1995)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Konrad Junghänel, Gradus ad Parnassum - Biber: Missa Alleluja à 36; Schmelzer: Vesperae Sollennes (1995)

Konrad Junghänel, Gradus ad Parnassum - Biber: Missa Alleluja à 36; Schmelzer: Vesperae Sollennes (1995)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 310 Mb | Total time: 73:55 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | # 05472 77326 2 | Recorded: 1994

A large collection of religious works by two Austrian composers. Bieber's work for 36 voices is a powerful and moving piece, especially for cornets, trumpets, sackbuts and timpani bursts. Here, Junghaner is in charge of the Viennese early music group and Concerto Palatino, who has the best technique and expressiveness in the early music brass system, also contributes to this wonderful performance. It was performed in the mass format at the time, and is recorded with a sonata in front and behind. [Sony Music]

Judith Nelson, René Jacobs, Wieland Kuijken, Konrad Junghänel, William Christie - Pietro Antonio Cesti: "Pasticcio" (2006)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Judith Nelson, René Jacobs, Wieland Kuijken, Konrad Junghänel, William Christie - Pietro Antonio Cesti: "Pasticcio" (2006)

Judith Nelson, René Jacobs, Wieland Kuijken, Konrad Junghänel, William Christie - Pietro Antonio Cesti: "Pasticcio" (2006)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 578 Mb | Total time: 109:20 | Scans included
Classical | Label: ORF | # ORF - CD-451 | Recorded: 1980

The Italian opera of the 17th century is a part of music history which is still hardly explored. Of course, Claudio Monteverdi's operas are regularly performed and recorded, and some of the stage works by his pupil Francesco Cavalli, the main composer of operas in Venice after Monteverdi's death has been given attention to, but many other works written in Italy in the 17th century are still to be rediscovered. One of the composers of that time whose works are hardly explored is Pietro Antonio Cesti. From the tracklist one may conclude that he was a prolific composer of operas. René Jacobs has been an avid advocate of Cesti's oeuvre, and in 1982 he made a recording of L'Orontea, arias from which he also performed at the concert in 1980 recorded and only recently released by ORF. He also gave performances of L'Argia, but so far that hasn't been recorded on disc.

Smithsonian Chamber Players - Marin Marais: Pièces à deux violes 1686 (1990)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Smithsonian Chamber Players - Marin Marais: Pièces à deux violes 1686 (1990)

Smithsonian Chamber Players - Marin Marais: Pièces à deux violes 1686 (1990)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 258 Mb | Total time: 52:41 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | # RD77146 | Recorded: 1987

Slowik, ter Linden, and Junghänel bring a fresh quality of robustness to the music and cleave together, even breathing as one, in a remarkable display of ensemble playing. They show an enviable mastery of gesture and phrase in performances of breadth and cohesion.

Konrad Junghänel, Saarländisches Staatsorchester - George Frederick Handel: Agrippina (2012)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Konrad Junghänel, Saarländisches Staatsorchester - George Frederick Handel: Agrippina (2012)

Konrad Junghänel, Saarländisches Staatsorchester - George Frederick Handel: Agrippina (2012)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 650 Mb | Total time: 153:23 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Intergroove Classics | # IGC004-2 | Recorded: 2008

Recorded live at the Saarbrücken State Theatre in 2008, this spectacular new production of Handel's Agrippina has received critical recognition, with reviewer Frank Herkommer of opernnetz.de commenting: "Producer Peter Lund with his celebrated production of Agrippina demonstrates his love with detail, focused on directing the characters, with exuberant fantasy and creativity the Berlin director sparks brilliant Handel fireworks! He succeeds in unleashing an effervescent joy of playing, which puts an irresistible spell on the viewer". Featuring a cast of renowned baroque specialists under the direction of Konrad Junghänel, one of the leading conductors in the array of early music.

Jérôme Lejeune - The Time of Monteverdi [8CDs] (2015)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Jérôme Lejeune - The Time of Monteverdi [8CDs] (2015)

Jérôme Lejeune - The Time of Monteverdi [8CDs] (2015)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 2.64 Gb | Total time: 10h28' | Scans included
Classical | Label: Ricercar | # RIC 107

The successor to Music in Europe at the time of the Renaissance, this second volume in our History of Early Music is devoted to the music of the first part of the Baroque period in Italy, from the Florentine Camerata and the first operas to the heirs of Monteverdi; it was at that time that the freedom of structure characteristic of the beginning of the 17th century began to give way to the first traces of formalism. This period covers almost an entire century, beginning with the performances of La Pellegrina mounted in Florence in 1589 and ending with the final operas of Francesco Cavalli in the early 1670s. The sacred and the profane mingled and met during this period, which also saw the birth of accompanied monody, opera and oratorio, virtuoso performance and the sonata; it is precisely this same mix that we see in the Nativity by Caravaggio that appears on the cover of this set. The musical expression of this Baroque aesthetic is the subject of Jérome Lejeune’s accompanying dissertation.

Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Georg Philipp Telemann: Trauer-Actus. Kantaten (2002)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Georg Philipp Telemann: Trauer-Actus. Kantaten (2002)

Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Georg Philipp Telemann: Trauer-Actus. Kantaten (2002)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 354 Mb | Total time: 79:49 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMC 901768 | Recorded: 2001

This collection of five cantatas by Telemann (out of the nearly 1,500 he composed!) are all dark-hued and contemplative. They are concerned mostly with death, faith in God to the end, life's ephemeral nature, and the desire for a clean soul. But out of such somber, austere subject matter comes not only very beautiful music, but greater variety than one might suppose. In "Sei getreu bis in den tod" (Be faithful unto death), Telemann gives us four arias for separate voice types, and while the accompanying instrumentation remains sparse–organ and strings–he varies the moods by subtle shifts in tempi, the occasional use of pizzicato strings against a solo violin, and so forth. When a chorus is called for, Junghänel uses the five soloists. The effect is very intimate and just right for the meditative quality of the works.

Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Dietrich Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri (2006)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Dietrich Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri (2006)

Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Dietrich Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri (2006)
dBpoweramp | FLAC | Tracks (Cue & Log) ~ 346 Mb | Total time: 74:06 | Scans included
Classical | Harmonia Mundi | # HMC 901912 | Recorded: 2005

Membra Jesu Nostri (The Limbs of our Lord Jesus) is the single largest and most compelling of the 110 or so sacred vocal works left us by Dutch-German master Dietrich Buxtehude. Buxtehude is better known for his organ music and is rightfully acknowledged as a formative influence on Johann Sebastian Bach. However, Buxtehude's vocal output is slightly larger than that for organ, and he was a key player in the refinement of the German sacred concerto into what we now call the sacred cantata, which he and his wife inherited from its creator and his predecessor, Franz Tunder, in the town of Lübeck. In the years following Buxtehude's death in 1707, German composers of all kinds were gainfully employed writing cantatas in the thousands, Georg Philipp Telemann produced nearly 2,000 of them on his own.

René Jacobs, Concerto Vocale - Pietro Antonio Cesti: Cantate (2004)

Posted By: ArlegZ
René Jacobs, Concerto Vocale - Pietro Antonio Cesti: Cantate (2004)

René Jacobs, Concerto Vocale - Pietro Antonio Cesti: Cantate (2004)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 260 Mb | Total time: 58:16 | Scans included
Classical | Harmonia Mundi | HMX 2901018 | Recorded: 1978, 1982

Pietro Antonio Cesti, byname Marc’ Antonio, (1623-1669) composer who, with Francesco Cavalli, was one of the leading Italian composers of the 17th century. Cesti studied in Rome and then moved to Venice, where his first known opera, Orontea, was produced in 1649. In 1652 he became chapelmaster to Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck, a post he combined for a time with membership in the papal choir. From 1666 to 1669 he was vice chapelmaster to the imperial court in Vienna.

René Jacobs, Agnès Mellon, Concerto Vocale - Giacomo Carissimi: Duos & Cantates (1987)

Posted By: ArlegZ
René Jacobs, Agnès Mellon, Concerto Vocale - Giacomo Carissimi: Duos & Cantates (1987)

René Jacobs, Agnès Mellon, Concerto Vocale - Giacomo Carissimi: Duos & Cantates (1987)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 266 Mb | Total time: 67:46 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMC 901262 | Recorded: 1987

Genius vindicated! Carissimi would seem to have been one of those composers popularly associated with sacred genres (in part because he was a Jesuit priest in the important post of Maestro de cappella at the Roman Collegio Germanico, in part because of the whims of the recording industry) to the neglect of the secular genres—especially the cantata—which he is acknowledged to have pursued with such distinction. During his lifetime Carissimi's cantatas were very much admired and with the appearance of this delightful CD the weight of his contemporary reputation will be more evenly divided.

Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Johann Sebastian Bach: Missae Breves (2016)

Posted By: ArlegZ
Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Johann Sebastian Bach: Missae Breves (2016)

Konrad Junghänel, Cantus Cölln - Johann Sebastian Bach: Missae Breves (2016)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 524 Mb | Total time: 110:00 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Harmonia Mundi | # HMY 2921939.40 | Recorded: 2006

Most modern discussions of Bach’s so-called Lutheran Masses bemoan the fact that scholars and Bach authorities have dismissed their intrinsic musical value because they are predominantly parodies–reworkings of existing music, in this case, movements from 10 different cantatas. Never mind that the “existing music” is all by Bach, and that Bach didn’t just insert new texts or change instrumentation, but he actually created virtually new works that stand firmly on their own.