CDs

Recorders within an orchestral sound: This project was a matter near to the hearts of the world-famous Flanders Recorder Quartet : music for several recorders and ensemble, a number of pieces even for a whole Baroque orchestra ... Jewels by Vivaldi, Bach, Heinichen, and Purcell are to be heard! As a “counterpoint” to this, Piet Swerts’s fascinating work Motion from 2001. Until their disbandment in 2018, Flanders Recorder Quartet was certainly the most prominent and consistently active recorder quartet in the world. It regularly makes concert tours through Europe, North America, and Asia. TOM BEETS, JORIS VAN GOETHEM, BART SPANHOVE, PAUL VAN LOEY recorders with guests Bart Jacobs, Kaori Uemura, Dirk Vandaele, Marianne Herssens, Hans De Volder, Jan Bontinck & Benoît Vanden Bemden AE10216 • Released 2014

Special music for a special occasion: The world-famous Flanders Recorder Quartet celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary by presenting an unusual program: encores, music from the concert’s “third half,” witty and astonishing original compositions as well as arrangements of well-known works that one does not expect to hear on the recorder... Equipped with recorders in all imaginable sizes, the Quartet dispels the notion that the music of the Romantic period does not fit the instrument, makes excursions into jazz, and performs several treasures by its personal “house composers.” Right: this is not baroque music - but exciting music for a baroque instrument. Until their disbandment in 2018, Flanders Recorder Quartet was certainly the most prominent and consistently active recorder quartet in the world. It regularly makes concert tours through Europe, North America, and Asia. TOM BEETS, JORIS VAN GOETHEM, BART SPANHOVE, PAUL VAN LOEY recorders AE10196 • Released 2013

•• FULL OF THE HIGHLAND HUMOURS WAS OUR FEATURED ALBUM FOR AUGUST 2023 •• Click here to read our blog about this release! ‘ Full of the Highland Humours ’, the debut recording from award-winning period group Ensemble Hesperi , celebrates the immense success Scottish music enjoyed in eighteenth-century London. In 1700 the first known collection of Scots Tunes was printed in London by the celebrated music publisher Henry Playford. Ever the savvy advertiser, Playford claimed in the title that the music contained therein was “Full of the Highland Humours”, revealing the stereotypical lens through which many eighteenth-century Londoners saw Scotland. Just as, today, Highland dress has become an emblem of Scotland as a whole, in the 1700s its national music was often symbolically associated with the Highlands, a distant and “exotic” landscape where wild, pathetic melodies could be found. Yet in reality, after the Act of Union in 1707, ambitious Scots arrived in London in droves, bringing the music of their homeland with them, and contributing to an increasingly diverse musical culture in the capital. Highlights of the disc include rarely recorded works by James Oswald, a highly successful Scottish composer who made London his “home from home” in the 1740s. Many of Oswald's compositions exhibit musical features associated with Scottish traditional music, and reveal his flair for charming melodies in the newly fashionable “galant” style. His ‘Airs for the Seasons’, four of which appear on the disc, are delightful miniatures, each named after a flower or a plant that blooms in the appropriate season. Also featured are sparkling trio sonatas by Giuseppe Sammartini, a close colleague of Oswald, and by their undeservedly ignored contemporary, Francesco Geminiani, who admired Scottish music so much that his ‘Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick’ featured entirely his own arrangements of popular Scots tunes. Oswald also made his native music work to his advantage, weaving five well-known melodies into a ‘Sonata on Scots Tunes’ which cannot fail to transport the listener on a journey to “North Briton”. Music by two remaining Scottish composers feature on the disc: Thomas Erskine, Sixth Earl of Kellie, a talented aristocrat whose enthusiasm for local music-making in Fife earned him the nickname “Fiddler Tam”, and Robert Bremner, an enterprising Scottish publisher and composer whose influence in London and Edinburgh helped to cement the long-held musical relationship between the capital and Scotland itself. MARY-JANNET LEITH recorders MAGDALENA LOTH-HILL baroque violin FLORENCE PETIT baroque cello THOMAS ALLERY harpsichord EMRCD074 • Released 2022

Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff are heard here in an insightful – and delightful – programme of sonatas for violin and piano which begins with Bach’s Sonata No.3 in E major , ends with Beethoven’s Sonata No.10 in G major , and has at its centre Busoni’s Sonata No. 2 in E minor . No other 20th century composer was as deeply steeped in the music of Bach as Ferruccio Busoni, and his second sonata, published in 1901, is indebted to both Bach and Beethoven. Its form makes references to Beethoven’s late sonatas, and the final movement incorporates as its variation theme Bach’s chorale “Wie wohl ist mir”. As on their earlier and widely-admired duo recording for ECM (featuring Schubert Fantasies), Shiokawa and Schiff play the music with absolute authority and deep understanding. Their Bach-Busoni-Beethoven programme was recorded in Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in December 2016, and produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM4815767 • Released 2017

András Schiff returned to the Goldberg Variations in 2003, in what was be regarded as one of the classical music events of the year. Two decades after his acclaimed account of the Variations for Decca, Schiff documents Bach’s towering masterpiece again, this time in a live recording for ECM New Series . As the New York Times said, “Mr Schiff is, in Bach, a phenomenon. He has quite simply internalized this music. He doesn’t so much perform it as emit, breathe it.” The fluency of the playing in this concert recording from Basel is quietly astonishing, the technical demands of the work transcended with uncanny gracefulness. ECM4721852 • Released 2003

Tastar de Corde - Early Italian Lute Music Music by Aquila, Phalèse, Milano, Dalza, Capriola, Bossenensis, Attaingnant, Thibault, Neusidler, Crema, Spinacino & Craus. Tony Scheuregger is a lute player specialising in music from the Medieval and Renaissance eras. Tony studied lute with Jacob Heringman and previously worked as a composer creating a wide range of music for TV, radio and video. In 2012 he formed the early music trio Hexachordia. HEXCD6 • Released 2022

Medieval Women: Music Makers and Muses - CD - Medieval Music in the Dales 2022 The theme of 2022 festival was Medieval Women: Music Makers and Muses , and just as it sounds we are going to focus on the music medieval women might have made and enjoyed. But we are also letting ourselves focus on some of the amazing women musicians working right now in medieval music - so all the principal performers at the festival and on the CD are women. CD features: Amor Céu from Finland: singer and artistic director Aino Peltomaa, clavisimbalist Anna-Maaria Oramo, vielle player Eira Karlson, with Corina Marti on recorder. Elisabeth Pawelke from Germany: singer and harp player, founder member of Faun and now with Ensemble Almara Silke Gwendolyn Shulze from Germany: multi-wind-instrumentalist extraordinaire Stef Conner (UK) with Hanna Marti (Switzerland): two amazing performers and composers who specialise in 'lost' early music Vivien Ellis (UK: The Dufay Collective, Alva) and Leah Stuttard (UK: Ensemble Micrologus and others): two wonderfully skilled musicians working together at MMitD Juliette Primrose (New Zealand, now based in UK): a superbly skilled vielle player The trio Voice (UK) - simply sublime blending of voices from these three singers Cait Webb (UK): a multi-instrumentalist (and medieval dance specialist) with Gaita, Scotland's leading medieval music ensemble Gill Page (UK): one of Trouvere and the director of Medieval Music in the Dales ODP033 • Released 2022

Zephirus: His Sweet Breeth - CD - Blondel BLONDEL Emily Baines alto shawm, alto & tenor recorders, bagpipes Belinda Paul soprano shawm, tenor recorder, bagpipes Lizzie Gutteridge alto shawm, tenor recorder, bagpipes Tracks: Guillaume Dufay (?1397–1474) 1. Ce moys de may 2. L’alta belleza tua 3. J’atendray tant qu’il vous playra Jehan Vaillant 4. Par Maintes Foys Grimace 5. Se Zephirus/Se Jupiter Guillaume Dufay (?1397–1474) 6. Quel fronte signorille Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) 7. Dame, se vous m’estes lonteinne — Douce dame jolie Anonymous (Codex Reina) 8. Marticius qui fu Solage 9. Tres gentil cuer Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) 10. Se mesdisans Guillaume Dufay (?1397–1474) 11. Puisque celle qui ne tient en prison Guillaume Dufay (?1397–1474) 12. Ce jour de l’an Gilles Binchois (1400–1460) 13. De plus en plus se renouvelle Anonymous Ms. de Marguerite d’Autriche 14. La Danse de Cleves — La Franchoise Nouvelle Jehan de Haucourt (fl. 1390–after 1416) 15. Je demande ma bienvenue Guillaume Dufay (?1397–1474) 16. Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) 17. Riches d’amour 18. Ne que on porroit 19. Donnez, signeurs Anonymous (El Escorial IV.a.24) 20. A cheval, tout homme a cheval Anonymous (Codex Reina) 21. Or sus, vous dormés trop

The Kings Pavan - CD - The York Waits Tracks: 1. Blow thy horn, hunter William Cornysh (d.1523) 2. This enderis day/Ly bens distonys/ Prenés in gre/ Northumberland/ Esperans anon. Gresley ms., c.1500 3. Amours, amours pub. Pierre Attaingnant, 1533 4. Amour partés Philip van Wilder (c.1500-1553) 5. Adieu, adieu, my heartes lust Cornysh 6. Je file quand Dieu me donne de quoy van Wilder 7. La Magdalena Pierre Blondeau, pub Attaingnant, 1530 8. Whoso that will himself apply Rysbie 9. Lauda anima mea dominum Clemens non Papa (c.1510-1556) 10. Si je perdu mon amy anon. Liber Fridolin Sichery c.1510 11. Sauff aus und machs bit lang Heinrich Finck (c.1445-1527) 12. My Lady Carey’s Dompe attrib. Hugh Aston (c.1485-1558) Hornpipe d’Angleterre Guillaume Morlaye, pub.1553 13. Pastime with good company Henry VIII (r.1509-1547) 14. The King’s Pavan anon. 15. En vray amour Henry VIII 16. Il estoit une fillette pub. Susato, 1551 17. O my heart Henry VIII 18. Tandernaken, al op den Rijn anon. 19. Taundernaken Henry VIII 20. Dit le Bourgignon anon., pub. Petrucci 1501 21. Lusty youth should us ensue Henry VIII 22. Whoso that will for grace sue Henry VIII

The White Rose and The Red - CD - The York Waits

Cherwell Thy Wyne - CD - The York Waits The ‘Gresley’ manuscript is a small notebook written by John Baynes belonging to the Gresley of Drakelow family papers and held in the Derbyshire Record Office at Matlock, dated to c. 1500. As far as is known, it is the only extant English dance record of its type. The CD has music for all the dances, as well as tunes from the manuscript that do not have steps, and specially written tunes for dances where no music is given. The York Waits play these on a wide range of instruments including shawms, bagpipes, fiddles, harp, gittern and lute. Tracks: Attendans Armynn Mowbray Talbott Prenes in gre Temperans Lebeus disineus Damesyn Eglamowr Hawthorne Oringe Tamrett Grengynger La Duches Bugill Northumberland Esperans Roye New yer Sofferance Aras Prenes a gard What so ever ye wyll Princitore Egle Rawty This enderis day Bayon

Vivaldi as you’ve never heard him before! 300 years ago, Vivaldi’s music was so popular and influential that other composers right across Europe copied it, studied it, rearranged it…. and some even faked it. Includes Chedeville’s reworkings of Spring and Autumn from The Four Seasons (with hurdy-gurdy virtuoso Tobie Miller), along with new arrangements of Bach organ concertos and Vivaldi’s La Follia . “…wonderfully passionate and detailed playing… in the hands of the wonderfully virtuosic Annabel Knight and Louise Bradbury the playing is never less than superbly accomplished…” Early Music Review

Italian Dance and Song Music from the Renaissance. Piva’s long awaited cd is now available! We’ve received some great feedback already; “a wonderfully conceived and executed disc of Italian Renaissance songs and dances”, “anyone who loves early music has to have this CD in their collection. Seriously.” “Beautifully played, great packaging and stunningly well recorded”.

English Dance and Ballad Music from the Renaissance. “a joyous reclamation of Elizabethan repertoire, Piva are clearly having sheer good fun.” Early Music Today “This is a must have album because it contains great tunes played well, while bringing to life the roots of the English traditional dance music that we know and love.” fRoots Magazine