Franco Fagioli, Il Pomo d’Oro, Zefira Valova – Handel Arias (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:19:50 minutes | 1,57 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
This album isn’t just for fans of the counter-tenor’s voice – Franco Fagiolo being one of the stars in the market – but also for lovers of the airs from Handel’s operas, and any serious baroque orchestra enthusiast, the orchestra here being Il Pomo d’Oro. When you unite all these elements together in a recording, the result is spectacular. This record includes the thrills of big hits like “Ombra mai fu” from Serse or “Cara sposa” from Rinaldo, as well as a number of no-less-interesting rarities, which have the advantage of shining a light on the lesser played works of the caro Sassone. After all,Ariodante, Partenope, Imeneo and Oreste (the album covers the composer’s entire period of lyrical creativity) all have some great moments, and completely original airs, often loaded with the instrumental surprises that Handel arranged so well. And so, fans, if all three of the big elements are there – or if you are just curious to hear a very well made record – get stuck in!
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Franco Battiato – L’Era Del Cinghiale Bianco (40th Anniversary Remastered Edition) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:11 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music Italia srL.
This album marks the return of Battiato to pop, after a period in which he substantially produced experimental music (1972–1978). The title song’s theme, the “white boar”, is inspired to an ancient Celtic myth.
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Franck Tortiller – Ochestre Franck Tortiller (Shut Up’n Sing Yer Zappa) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:02:05 minutes | 2,52 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Label MCO
De ses collaborations avec, entre autres, le Vienna Art Orchestra ou l’Orchestre National de Jazz, Franck Tortiller a gardé le goût de l’écriture pour grands ensembles. Comme pour son précédent hommage à Led Zeppelin, il affirme une nouvelle fois son goût pour la pop. Entouré d’une bande de jeunes et talentueux musiciens fraîchement sortis du conservatoire, il présente une version jazz des musiques (et plus particulièrement des chansons) de Frank Zappa. Et cela reste, malgré le temps, d’une musicalité et d’une actualité brûlantes.
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Marc-André Hamelin, Takács Quartet – Franck: Piano Quintet; Debussy: String Quartet (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:23 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Hyperion Records
Franck’s Piano Quintet and Debussy’s String Quartet make an apt and unusual coupling, each work its composer’s only, unsurpassable, contribution to the genre. Both receive authoritative performances from Marc-André Hamelin and the Takács Quartet.
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Franck Besingrand – Du ciel vers la terre: Au temps de César Franck (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:14:57 minutes | 681 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © HORTUS
Né à Bordeaux, Franck Besingrand poursuit des études musicales approfondies au Conservatoire Régional de Toulouse, il obtient des récompenses comme le Prix de Composition. Il se spécialise dans l’enseignement musical des déficients visuels, après une formation à l’Institut de Jeunes Aveugles de Paris et enseigne plusieurs années à l’Institut des Jeunes Aveugles de Toulouse. Titulaire de plusieurs certificats d’enseignement, il enseigne aujourd’hui dans la Région Midi-Pyrénées, participant activement au rayonnement de sa vie musicale. Il se produit régulièrement en concerts en France : à Paris et dans des Festivals Internationaux d’orgue et à l’étranger : Suisse, Allemagne, Belgique, Espagne, Canada (où il a donné à plusieurs reprises des récitals) Lauréat de concours d’orgue, comme le Prix d’Honneur UFAM, et de composition (notamment en 2010 au Concours Suisse Lonfat-Stalder pour son œuvre Couleurs d’Etoiles), il se distingue en tant que compositeur, publiant plusieurs partitions chez les éditeurs Combre et Rubin. Comme musicologue, il a travaillé sur la musique de Jean Langlais, sur le répertoire et le langage musical de l’Orgue Français Classique et sur la correspondance de l’orgue et de l’orchestre au XIX° siècles, sur Louis Vierne avec la publication en 2011 d’un ouvrage particulièrement bien salué par la critique et le milieu musical, chez Bleu nuit éditeur, Paris. Actuellement il prépare un ouvrage sur Henri Duparc. Il a signé 5 CD dans un répertoire allant de Buxtehude à nos jours, dont « Splendeur de l’orgue en fête au dix-huitième siècle » enregistré sur l’orgue historique de Cintegabelle et unanimement plébiscité par la presse musicale.
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Franck Amsallem – Gotham Goodbye (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 58:12 minutes | 658 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Jazz & People
In 1981 Franck traveled to the United States to study at the Berklee College of music. After graduating Franck moved to New York where he spent two decades as a professional jazz musician performing with many of the greats, led his own groups, and recorded a series of acclaimed albums with major jazz musicians. In 2001, exactly twenty years to the day when he first set foot on American soil, Franck Amsallem made the decision to return to France.
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The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips – Francisco Guerrero – Missa Surge propera (2006)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:50 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Gimell Records
“Known in his lifetime as ‘El cantor de Maria’, Guerrero was second only to Victoria in Spanish renaissance music. His Marian motets are celebrated as some of the most beautiful compositions of the period: we include five of the best, including Ave virgo sanctissima, one of the most loved and imitated pieces of polyphony from any country.” Peter Phillips
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Antonio Vivaldi – Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 52:22 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Avie Records
Apollo’s Fire and its founder-director Jeannette Sorrell have blazed trails in the world of historically informed performance with pioneering programming, presentational flair and an entrepreneurial spirit. Their latest release, which launches the ensemble’s 30th anniversary season, is destined to soar to similar heights: the ensemble’s first recording of the perennial audience favourite, Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, featuring the phenomenal Spanish-born fiddler Francisco Fullana. Frequently performed at Apollo’s Fire home base in Cleveland, Ohio and on their international tours, “Sorrell’s vivid approach to the pictorial elements make these familiar works seem freshly minted, full of astonishing incident”, according to Seen & Heard International. The Four Seasons is the first of five releases spread throughout the season celebrating Apollo’s Fire’s milestone 30th anniversary.
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Francisco Fullana – Through the Lens of Time (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:18 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
Young Spanish violinist Francisco Fullana will release his debut recording in March 2018 (Orchid Classics). Entitled Through the Lens of Time, the recording brings together four modern perspectives reimagining the Baroque tradition: a dialogue that prompts both composers and performers to explore musical giants of the past and place them in their own lives. Francisco Fullana has recorded the CD together with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Carlos Izcaray as well as with pianist David Fung.
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Francisco Fullana – Bach’s Long Shadow: The Chaconne Files (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 34:50 minutes | 658 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
Spanish-American violinist Francisco Fullana has taken the Partita No. 3 in E Major by Johann Sebastian Bach and built around it a programme of interlinked yet contrasting works, resulting in an original and intricately constructed album. Johann Sebastian Bach’s output has had a far-reaching impact, casting the “Long Shadow” that gives this album its name. Fullana uses gut strings, a baroque bow and historically informed ornamentation for his performance of Bach’s E major Partita, creating a pared-down, immediate interpretation.
Ysaÿe was inspired to write his Op. 27 Sonatas after hearing Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. Yet whereas Bach’s music demands restraint from the performer, Ysaÿe’s encourages virtuosity. There is darkness in this Sonata, too, and Fullana performs the work with electrifying energy. Fritz Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo was dedicated to Ysaÿe, and Fullana feels a special kinship with Kreisler: he plays Kreisler’s first Guarneri violin, the 1735 “Mary Portman” Guarneri del Gesù.
The recital culminates in Ysaÿe’s Sonata for Two Violins. Ysaÿe wrote the work to perform with Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, who gave her name to a violin competition that was most recently won by violinist Stella Chen, Fullana’s duo partner on this album.
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Francisco Fullana – Bach’s Long Shadow (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:36 minutes | 1004 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Orchid Classics
Spanish-American violinist Francisco Fullana has taken the Partita No. 3 in E Major by J.S. Bach and built around it a programme of interlinked yet contrasting works, resulting in an original and intricately constructed album. J.S. Bach’s output has had a far-reaching impact, casting the “Long Shadow” that gives this album its name. Fullana uses gut strings, a baroque bow and historically informed ornamentation for his performance of Bach’s E Major Partita, creating a pared-down, immediate interpretation.
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Francis Rossi & Hannah Rickard – We Talk Too Much (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 40:39 minutes | 501 MB | Genre: Pop, Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © earMUSIC
Francis Rossi, founder/lead singer/songwriter/guitarist of rock legends, Status Quo, releases a unique collaborative album, ‘We Talk Too Much’, with vocalist Hannah Rickard, from Status Quo’s hugely successful ‘Aquostic’ and ‘Aquostic II’ albums. This collection of country and country rock duets – featuring brand new songs written by Rossi and Rickard along with Quo writers Bob Young and Bernie Frost – brings to mind the wonderful collaborations of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.
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Francis Lung – Songs From a Living Room (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 26:57 minutes | 276 MB | Genre: Alternative, Indie
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Memphis Industries
Looking to the ’60s for inspirations such as the Left Banke and Phil Spector, Francis Lung is the solo alias of Manchester singer/songwriter Tom McClung, formerly of WU LYF. Debuting with sparer, more intimate material on a pair of EPs in 2016, he arrived at a lusher, affectionate Baroque pop on his first full-length, 2019’s A Dream Is U. McClung began working on solo material while still with WU LYF, which disbanded a year after issuing their critically acclaimed debut, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain, in 2011. The band – Ellery James Roberts (lead vocals), Evans Kati (guitar), Joe Manning (drums), and McClung, aka “Lung” (bass) – cracked the Top 100 with the album in their native U.K. As Francis Lung, McClung released the home-recorded EPs Vol. 1 (Faeher’s Son) and Vol. 2 (Mother’s Son) in late 2016. Working with producer Brendan Williams, he expanded his sound for his full-length debut, A Dream Is U, which saw release by Memphis Industries in 2019. – Marcy Donelson
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Francis Grier – Choral Music by John Tavener and Francis Grier (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 32:00 minutes | 1,05 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © The Rodolfus Foundation
Francis John Roy Grier is an English choral and vocal classical composer and psychoanalyst.
He was a chorister at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, music scholar at Eton College, and organ scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, then Assistant Organist and then Organist (1981-5) of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. He made many recordings and broadcasts as organist and choir director, including playing La Nativit’e du Seigneur by Olivier Messiaen at the first ever Prom concert given over to a solo performer.
As chamber music pianist he has been playing with the soprano Dorothee Jansen in the Jansen-Grier-Duo since their inaugural recital in summer 2000.
As a composer he has written much for the Anglican choral tradition and several large-scale works.
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