Los Imposibles

Nueva España / Ensemble Mare Nostrum (Alpha, 2012)

facepalmmozart:

‘Lady at the spinet’ by Jan Molenaer [1610 - 1668]

Spinetta with Case [1540, Venice, Italy]

still playable and this is what it sounds like:

Charles Avison - Concertos in Seven Parts done from the Lessons of Domenico Scarlatti: Concerto #5 in D minor: 1. Largo

Café Zimmermann

Charles Avison (16 February 1709 (baptized) – 10 May 1770) was an English composer during the Baroque and Classical periods. He is best remembered for his 12 Concerti Grossi after Scarlatti and his Essay on Musical Expression, the first music criticism published in English. As a young man, he travelled to London to study under Francesco Geminiani. In his Concerti Grossi, in particular, he carried on Geminiani's technique of modeling orchestral concertos after sonatas by older composers.

(link - iTunes - Spotify)

Jean-Philippe Rameau - Pièces de clavecin (1724): Suite en mi mineur: Gigue en rondeau I

William Christie

The French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau wrote three books of Pièces de clavecin for the harpsichord. Along with François Couperin, Rameau is one of the two masters of the French school of harpsichord music in the 18th century. Both composers made a decisive break with the style of the first generation of harpsichordists, who confined their compositions to the relatively fixed mould of the classical suite.

(link - Amazon)

leadingtone:

John Dowland - “Weep You No More, Sad Fountains” Paul Agnew, tenor; Christopher Wilson, lute.  

Pietro Antonio Locatelli - Concerti Grossi, Op. 1: Concerto VIII "Pastorale" a cinque in F minor: 1. Largo. Grave

Freiburger Barockorchester / Gottfried von der Goltz

Pietro Antonio Locatelli (3 September 1695 – 30 March 1764) was an Italian composer and violinist. Locatelli was born in Bergamo, Italy. A child prodigy on the violin, he was sent to study in Rome under the direction of Arcangelo Corelli. Little is known of his subsequent activities except that he finally settled in Amsterdam in 1729, where he died on 30 March 1764.

(link - iTunes - Amazon)

leadingtone:

J. S. Bach - “Ich harre des Herrn” from Cantata 131, “Aus tiefe Not schrei’ ich zu Dir.” Collegium Vocale, Philippe Herreweghe, cond. 

Giovanni Baptista Pergolesi - Stabat Mater: Aria: Vidit suum dulcem natum

Christopher Hogwood - The Academy of Ancient Music Emma Kirkby (soprano) - James Bowman (contratenor) 

Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III. There are two Stabat Mater hymns, one the Stabat Mater Dolorosa is about the Sorrows of Mary, the other, Stabat Mater Speciosa joyfully refers to the Nativity of Jesus. The Dolorosa has been set to music by many composers, with the most famous settings being those by Palestrina, Pergolesi, Haydn, Rossini, and Dvořák.

The German poet Tieck opined of Pergolesi's setting: "I had to turn away to hide my tears, especially at the place, 'Vidit suum dulcem natum'".

(link - iTunes - Amazon)

John Dowland - I Saw My Lady Weepe

Emma Kirkby & Anthony Rooley

"I Saw My Lady Weepe" is a lute song from the Second Booke of Songes or Ayres (1600) by Renaissance lutenist and composer John Dowland.  While composing "I Saw My Lady Weepe" and the other songs in the Second Booke, Dowland was heavily influenced by what has been referred to as the "Elizabethan Melancholy" or "Cult of Darkness." Interestingly, the poetry of "I Saw My Lady Weepe" breaks with some of the conventions of its day in its treatment of the lady's beauty and charms. Rather than grouping them together, Dowland presents us with a paradox in which the lady herself becomes more beautiful than her sorrow; at this time, it was the emotion itself that was generally considered to be the beauty or charm, rather than the human subject itself.

I saw my lady weep, And Sorrow proud to be advanced so, In those fair eyes where all perfections keep. Her face was full of woe, But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts, Than Mirth can do with her enticing parts.

Sorrow was there made fair, And Passion wise, tears a delightful thing, Silence beyond all speech a wisdom rare. She made her sighs to sing, And all things with so sweet a sadness move, As made my heart at once both grieve and love.

O fairer than aught else The world can show, leave off in time to grieve. Enough, enough, your joyful looks excels. Tears kill the heart, believe; O strive not to be excellent in woe, Which only breeds your beauty's overthrow.

(link - iTunes - Amazon)

Josquin Desprez - Mille Regretz

The Hilliard Ensemble

In the domain of secular music, Josquin left numerous French chansons, for from three to six voices, as well as a handful of Italian secular songs known as frottole, as well as some pieces which were probably intended for instrumental performance. Mille Regretz in its four part setting is usually credited to Josquin des Prez. Its plangent simplicity made it a popular basis for reworkings (such as the mass setting by Cristóbal de Morales), the variations for vihuela known as "La Canción del Emperador" by Luis de Narváez, as well as more recent sets of variations and threnody.

Mille regretz de vous abandonner Et d'eslonger vostre fache amoureuse, Jay si grand dueil et paine douloureuse, Quon me verra brief mes jours definer. A thousand regrets at deserting you and leaving behind your loving face, I feel so much sadness and such painful distress, that it seems to me my days will soon dwindle away.

(link - iTunes - Amazon)

Marc-Antoine Charpentier - Actéon: Fin: Choeur des chasseurs

William Christie - Les Arts Florissants

Actéon is a Pastorale in the form of a miniature tragédie en musique in six scenes based on a Greek myth. Although the patron and the place of performance remain unknown, the date can be determined with considerable accuracy: the spring hunting season of 1684.  The author of the French libretto is unknown, however the plot is based on a story in Ovid's Metamorphoses. In this story the hunter Actaeon (Actéon in French) accidentally discovers the goddess Diana (Diane in French) bathing with her attendants. He tries to hide himself, but is discovered, and Diane in anger turns him into a stag, and he is pursued and torn apart by his own hounds.

This story is the same one recounted in the aria "Oft she visits this lone mountain" from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, first performed in 1689.

(link - Amazon)

Vihuela.

François Couperin - Quatrième livre de suites pour clavecin (1730): La Convalescente

Mitzi Meyerson 

Couperin's four volumes of harpsichord music, published in Paris in 1713, 1717, 1722, and 1730, contain over 230 individual pieces, which can be played on solo harpsichord or performed as small chamber works. These pieces were not grouped into suites, as was the common practice, but ordres, which were Couperin's own version of suites containing traditional dances as well as descriptive pieces. 

Many of Couperin's keyboard pieces have evocative, picturesque titles and express a mood through key choices, adventurous harmonies and (resolved) discords. They have been likened to miniature tone poems. 

The early-music expert Jordi Savall has written that Couperin was the "poet musician par excellence", who believed in "the ability of Music [with a capital M] to express itself in prose and poetry", and that "if we enter into the poetry of music we discover that it carries grace that is more beautiful than beauty itself".

(link - iTunes - Amazon)

Henry Purcell - The Fairy Queen (Z.629): ACT II: Song "Hush, No More"

Ton Koopman / The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir

The Fairy Queen (1692) is a masque or semi-opera by Henry Purcell. The libretto is an anonymous adaptation of William Shakespeare's wedding comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. First performed in 1692, The Fairy Queen was composed three years before Purcell's death at the age of 35. Following his death, the score was lost and only rediscovered early in the twentieth century.