Home » Stories » Stile Antico The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez is a finely balanced recording / BBC Music Magazine

Stories for April 18, 2021

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    Mark Helias on pandemic collaborations / Contrabass Conversations
     
    Posted At : April 18, 2021 9:30 AM

    Contrabass Conversations writes......Mark Helias is a renowned bassist, composer and producer who has performed throughout the world for more than four decades with some of the most important and innovative musicians in Jazz and Improvised Music including Don Cherry, Edward Blackwell, Anthony Davis, Dewey Redman, Anthony Braxton, Abbey Lincoln, Cecil Taylor, and Uri Caine.  Mark recently released Some Kind of Tomorrow with saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom. We talk about what life has been like during the pandemic, this latest remote album collaboration with Jane and about remote collaboration in general, and many lessons learned from Mark's years working as a jazz bassist.  LISTEN

  • Joe Lovano chats with JazzFM's 'Full Circle'
     
    Posted At : April 17, 2021 12:00 AM

    The debut album of Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry was one of 2019's most talked-about releases. This musical concept is taken to the next level on its second album, Garden of Expression, a recording distinguished by its intense focus. Lovano, a saxophonist whose reach extends across the history of modern jazz and beyond, plays with exceptional sensitivity in Trio Tapestry. The music he writes for this group-tenderly melodic or declamatory, harmonically open, rhythmically free, and spiritually involving-encourages subtle and differentiated responses from his creative partners, creating interactions in which Lovano describes as "magical." Carmen Castaldi's space-conscious approach to drumming further refines an improvisational understanding that he and Lovano have shared since the early 1970s. The trio is also an inspired context for Marilyn Crispell's solos, counter melodies, and improvisational embellishments. Her feeling for sound-color helps the chamber music character of the group bloom.  Joe Lovano sat down with Ruth Fisher of JazzFM's Full Circle. Ruth commented that she was "Really thrilled to be in conversation with the incredible sax man. SEE THE POST

  • Montana Public Radio discusses 'Paris' with Hilary Hahn
     
    Posted At : April 14, 2021 12:00 AM

    Hilary Hahn's new recording pays homage to the rich cultural heritage of a city that has been close to her heart throughout her career. Released by Deutsche Grammophon on 5 March 2021, Paris sees the American violinist resume her productive partnership with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and its Music Director, Mikko Franck. The three-time Grammy Award-winner's album presents the world premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara's Deux Sérénades, commissioned by Mikko Franck. It also includes Ernest Chausson's Poème and Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.1, which received its first performance in the French capital in 1923. Montana Public Radio's John Floridis interviewed HH about the new recording. LISTEN TO THE SEGMENT

  • Albrecht Mayer's new 'Mozart' album is a personal tribute to the great composer / udiscovermusic.
     
    Posted At : April 14, 2021 12:00 AM

    udiscovermusic.'s Sharon Kelly writes.....Oboist Albrecht Mayer has released his new album Mozart, a personal and affectionate tribute to one of the greatest composers who ever lived. Albrecht Mayer has lived with Mozart's music for almost half a century. He first discovered the composer while he was a boy soprano in the Bamberg Cathedral Choir, an early experience which is perhaps partly responsible for the warm, singing quality of his oboe playing. Albrecht Mayer's new album Mozart is inspired by his lifelong love for the composer's music and is his first all-Mozart album. Photo: Christoph Köstlin READ THE FULL udiscovermusic. ARTICLE

  • Joy Harjo discusses 'I Pray for My Enemies' with Spokane Public Radio
     
    Posted At : April 14, 2021 12:00 AM

    In her first new recording in a decade, Joy Harjo – the first Native American named Poet Laureate of the United States – digs deep into the indigenous red earth and the shared languages of music to sing, speak and play a stunningly original musical meditation that seeks healing for a troubled world – I Pray for My Enemies, was released from Sunyata Records/Sony Orchard Distribution on March 5, 2021. Collaborating with producer/engineer Barrett Martin on this unique new album, Harjo brings a fresh identity to the poetry and songs that have made her a renowned poet of the Muscogee Creek Nation and one of the most authentic and compelling voices of these times.  "The concept for I Pray for My Enemies began" says Harjo, "with an urgent need to deal with discord, opposition. It could have been on a tribal, national or a personal level. I no longer remember. The urgency had a heartbeat and in any gathering of two or more, perhaps the whole planet, our hearts lean to entrainment – that is, to beat together."  Join Spokane Public Radio's 'Soundspace' as Zan hosts a phone interview with the multi-instrumentalist musician, poet, performer, activist and 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate, as she speaks about what inspired her recent album.  LISTEN

  • Oscar-nominated composer Emile Mosseri discusses scoring 'Minari' before he was hired / KDFC - KUSC
     
    Posted At : April 13, 2021 12:00 AM

    KDFC - KUSC's Brian Lauritzen and Jeffrey Freymann write.....Minari tells the story of a Korean family that moves to Arkansas in the 1980s, hoping to find their American dream by working a farm. For almost every film, the score is the last element to be added – after all the other editing has been done, and the actors have moved on to their next projects. But composer Emile Mosseri approached his score to Minari another way, writing many of the original themes when there was only a script, and the film hadn't yet been shot. He says he sent director Lee Isaac Chung sketches for the score even before he was officially hired as the film's composer, and thinks that the music would have had a less important role if it had been written later. Mosseri has only scored a handful of films, including the critically acclaimed The Last Black Man in San Francisco and Miranda July's Kajillionaire, yet won this nomination (one of six for the film) with a score about the intersection of two cultures that doesn't try to sound like either of them. Listen to Brian Lauritzen and Emile Mosseri chat on KDFC: San Francisco & KUSC: Los Angeles

  • Charles Richard-Hamelin: Chopin Preludes is the WFMT: Featured New Release
     
    Posted At : April 13, 2021 12:00 AM

    WFMT's Lisa Flynn writes.....The new album by Charles Richard-Hamelin presents two important works by Frédéric Chopin and consolidates the musician's place in the highest ranks of the pianistic world. Describing the 24 Preludes, Richard-Hamelin says: "One can hear the entire scope of Chopin's output inside the microcosm that are the Preludes. Across all the different major and minor keys, we get hints of his Études, Nocturnes, Impromptus, Mazurkas, and even fragments of larger works such as the Ballades. Yet, there is also a sense of an overarching story being told in 24 chapters of various lengths and weights. It is Chopin at his most beautiful, heart-wrenching, experimental, dissonant, sometimes even violent. It is a fascinating journey through the human psyche and my interpretation aims to show precisely that." For April 13, 2021, Charles Richard-Hamelin: Chopin Preludes is the WFMT: Chicago 'Featured New Release'

Top 10 for Apr

  • Vijay Iyer :

    Uneasy

     Uneasy, with Tyshawn Sorey and Linda May Han Oh, is Vijay Iyer's second trio album on ECM and his seventh appearance as a leader on the label.
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    'Hustle' from Black To The Future

     Saxophonist, composer, philosopher and writer Shabaka Hutchings returns with a brand-new album from his Mercury Prize nominated outfit Sons of Kemet.
  • Dustin O'Halloran :

    Silfur

     Dustin O'Halloran's debut Deutsche Grammophon album, Silfur, explores the shifting perspective of music through time and place in new pieces and reimagined earlier works.
  • Eydís Evensen :

    Bylur

     Icelandic pianist and post-classical composer Eydís Evensen has confirmed details of her debut album, BYLUR, which will be released on 23rd April, 2021 by XXIM Records, Sony's new imprint for innovative, post-genre instrumental music.
  • Moby :

    'Porcelain' from Reprise feat. Jim James

     Musical pioneer Moby announces his new album Reprise, out May 28th on Deutsche Grammophon.
  • Jacob Muhlrad :

    Time w/Swedish Radio Choir

     Those who peep through the window of Jacob Mühlrad's studio in Stockholm will see the composer busy behind his computer screen, perhaps blasting some Drake or FKA Twigs as he works on his own music.
  • Anoushka Shankar :

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  • Jon Batiste :

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  • Clark :

    Playground in a Lake

     On 26 March 2021 the ambitiously multifaceted musician/composer Clark presents his chillingly affecting ninth studio album Playground In A Lake, on which he broadens horizons and tries new things, with profound results.
  • Joey Alexander :

    SALT

     Three-time GRAMMY Award-nominated pianist Joey Alexander follows his major-label debut album, WARNA (Verve Records), with three new singles "SALT" (March 19: LINK), "Under the Sun" (April 23), and "Summer Rising" (May 28) set for global release on Verve.

Stile Antico The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez is a finely balanced recording / BBC Music Magazine

Posted: March 18, 2021 12:00 AM | By: Admin
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BBC Music Magazine writes.....Josquin des Prez (d1521) stood between two historical periods – medieval and renaissance – and completely dominated his age. Also several works survive commemorating his death, and two (by Vinders and Jacquet of Mantua) are included on the disc.

Was this Renaissance mass inspired by the roll of a die?
Stile Antico has much experience in this early repertoire and their performances are accomplished. They nicely shape the Salve Regina motet by the subtle use of dynamics, and the textures of Ave Maria emerge with great clarity, aided by the transparent text setting (each phrase has its own point of imitation) and by the finely balanced recording. Just occasionally, the performers might have more strongly highlighted (by matched articulation and phrasing) related voices, as in the two en-framing canonic parts of Virgo salutiferi.

The work at the centre of this recording is the great Pange Lingua Mass, a kind of fantasy on a plainsong for the feast of Corpus Christi. The sound is energised and kept bright by the upward transposition employed, though there are moments (in the Credo for example) where the performance becomes a bit featureless, and the speed slightly erratic. That said, this is a splendid introduction to one of our earliest identifiable musical geniuses.

SEE THE BBC Music Magazine PAGE

Crossover Media Projects with Stile Antico

  • Stile Antico

    The Golden Renaissance - Josquin des

    Decca Classics announces the release of the first in a trilogy of recordings from the internationally acclaimed vocal ensemble Stile Antico to celebrate major anniversaries of three Renaissance masters. The first in the series, The Golden Renaissance: Josquin des Prez, released today, 29th January 2021, is dedicated to the Franco-Flemish composer to mark the 500th anniversary of his death. 

    The series features stunning repertoire presented in Dolby Atmos for the first time, with this release featuring a world premiere recording of Josquin's chanson, Vivrai je tousjours. 

    One of the most important composers of the Renaissance, Josquin's remarkable developments in polyphonic vocal music defined the genre for all those who followed him. In an era of cultural revolution and discovery throughout Europe, this trailblazer is widely considered the first musical master of the High Renaissance.