Georg Kallweit, Björn Colell – Passaggio, eine barocke Alpenüberquerung (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:42 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
For several years now, the guitarist and lutenist Björn Colell and the Baroque violinist Georg Kallweit, Konzertmeister of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, have formed a noted duo called Ombra e Luce: ‘With only two musicians and two instruments, we aspire to a perfect rapport and a permanent dialogue. We have access to a rich repertory of original pieces from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries for violin and lute/theorbo: this was a widespread combination, essentially before 1700. We work a great deal on tone colours and nuances, spontaneity and improvisatory playing – a flexible and sensual interpretation of the works we perform, giving full value to chiaroscuro: ombra e luce! We are convinced that, played in this way, our “early music” can speak directly to the hearts even of listeners who are hearing it for the first time. This new recording, “Passagio”, is the result of our recent musical journeys. Setting out from Italy to go farther north, we have virtually and musically crossed the Alps with our instruments. The works on this recording shed a different light on the music of the courts of Modena, Bologna and Venice.’
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Xenia Löffler, Georg Kallweit, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin – Concerto, Venice: The Golden Age (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:40 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
This disc is an invitation to explore one of the great attractions of Venice in the Baroque era, the famous ‘ospedali’. These were establishments that took care of and educated children and adolescents. In the early 18 century almost all the leading Venetian musicians were linked with the musical activities of one of the ospedali. The best-known among them was Antonio Vivaldi: just 25 when he was hired as violin teacher at the Ospedale della Pietà. Among the residents of the Pietà was a girl named Pellegrina, for whom Vivaldi wrote many of his oboe concertos. Accompanied by her colleagues of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, oboist Xenia Löffler not only breathes new life into a selection of concertos by the Red Priest’, but also several by his emulators, among them a contemporary composer, Uri Rom. The programme begins with a concerto composed by Rom [b. 1969] in 2013 to a commission from the Akademie für Alte Musik and dedicated to Xenia Löffler, one of today s leading oboists. ‘Concerto L Olimpiade’ is a sort of pasticcio based on works by Antonio Vivaldi and Carlo Tessarini. The first movement is based on the aria Siam navi all onde algenti from the opera’ L Olimpiade’. The second movement reflects the reception of the Italian style by J. S. Bach. The finale takes as its models a movement from a violin concerto by Vivaldi (RV 172) and a movement from a violin concerto by Tessarini. The solo part and the formal layout of the movement are new. Since 2001 Xenia Löffler has been a member and principal oboist of the Akademie für Alte Musik, appearing regularly on international concert platforms as a soloist with that orchestra and with Collegium 1704 (Prague), the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle and the orchestra of the Halle Handel Festival.
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