Browse Titles - 8 results
Buxtehude - Suites and Variations
This selection from his keyboard works show him to have been a lively, tuneful character, and Bach, who...
Dietrich Buxtehude was the greatest musician in north Germany before J.S.Bach, who, being at that stage young and without many resources, took leave from his first organist post and walked for several days to stay and study with him in Lubeck. Buxtehude was justly famous as a virtuoso organist, composer, concert-organiser, and harpsichordist.This selection from his keyboard works show him to have been a lively, tuneful character, and Bach, who was not known for his patience, was eventually reprimanded by his employers for staying in Lubeck long after his leave of absence had expired. Buxtehude's best-known harpsichord work closes this album: the 32 variations "La Capriciosa" were undoubtedly an inspiration and challenge for Bach, who was to "cap" them with his own "Goldberg Variations.
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Dark Harpsichord Music
This alb...
This album recaptures the atmosphere, and much of the music, of a memorable concert given in 1995. It presents, in a continuously linked sequen...
Late evening in Devon, England. Blackbird and thrush sing their last tribute to the dying day. In the medieval splendour of Dartington Great Hall the lights are dimmed, and the sombre but glittering tones of a harpsichord take over from the birds' calls and carry an audience into the gathering darkness.This album recaptures the atmosphere, and much of the music, of a memorable concert given in 1995. It presents, in a continuously linked sequence of diverse but musically related pieces, an introspective exploration of mood. Much of the music is improvisation, either actual or in style. Included are the evocative "Overture to Orpheus" written in 1981 by Louis Andriessen, and music by three members of the Couperin family: Louis, Francois, and Armand-Louis, in all covering a period of more than one hundred years.
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Essential Scarlatti
Johann Mattheson - CD1 - The Twelve Suites of 1714
Johann Mattheson was a considerable composer, and we can tell that a number of his ideas were "borrowed" by Handel for his own music. Much of Mattheson's output perished in the bombing of Hamburg during World War II, but the exciting suites, here receiving their world premiere complete recording, survived, as they were published in 1714, both in Hamburg and London.
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Johann Mattheson - CD2 - The Twelve Suites of 1714
Johann Mattheson was a considerable composer, and we can tell that a number of his ideas were "borrowed" by Handel for his own music. Much of Mattheson's output perished in the bombing of Hamburg during World War II, but the exciting suites, here receiving their world premiere complete recording, survived, as they were published in 1714, both in Hamburg and London.
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JS Bach by arrangement
This album contains some of the great versions which he produced for himself and his famil...
This album contains some of the great versions which he produced for himself and his family to play on the harpsichord. Also included are Bach's monumental Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (which shows the influence of other comp...
Throughout his life J.S. Bach collected manuscript copies of music by other composers whom he admired. In some cases he arranged pieces by them for his own use, and re-arranged some of his own music for different mediums.This album contains some of the great versions which he produced for himself and his family to play on the harpsichord. Also included are Bach's monumental Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (which shows the influence of other composers, and is just a fantastic piece) and Colin Booth's own arrangement for harpsichord of Bach's famous D minor Chaconne for solo violin.
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Peter Philips - The English Exile
Philips' style is more overtly emotional than that of his English contemporaries. One of the most famous and intense pieces, Pavana Doloroso, is supposed to have been composed while he languished in prison, and his setting of Caccini's song Amarylli Mia Bella, conveys a surprising degree of pathos.
Contrasting with these are thrillingly virtuosic works, like the Galliarda Passamezzo, vividly conveying how exuberant dancing could be in the Renaissance period.
Colin Booth's album has received enthusiastic praise from English and German reviewers. He plays a large and unusual harpsichord: a copy of an Italian 17thC instrument with two keyboards, now in the collection in Nuremberg, Germany.
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William Croft - Keyboard Music
These harpsichord suites by Croft show the huge variety of his music, even when written for a single instrument, and they demonstrate his wonderful gift for melody.
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