La Nuova Musica, David Bates, Tim Mead, Fleur Barron, Giulia Semenzato, Nicky Spence – Purcell: Dido and Aeneas (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:31 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
La Nuova Musica is one of the most versatile performing groups of its kind.
We strive to reveal new aspects of familiar repertoire, expose lesser-known works from the Baroque and Classical periods and showcase new commissions through dynamic performances and recordings.
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Lucy Crowe, Tim Mead, La Nuova Musica and David Bates – Pergolesi: Stabat Mater – Bach: Cantatas BWV 54, 170 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:14 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Handel wrote little for his native tongue, but what he did demonstrates a particular level of contemplative piety while still employing the familiar techniques of Italian opera. Praise for the beauty of nature and eternal life are the subjects of the sacred poems by his contemporary Barthold Heinrich Brockes which Handel set to music in his ‘Nine German Arias’. Each aria celebrates an aspect of nature, from the beauty of a flaming rose to the sweetness of silence, with extraordinary tenderness and sincerity. In these nine pieces for soprano and a small group of instruments, to be chosen at will, Handel drew often on music from his own operas, albeit with the voice part in the German arias adapted to be less virtuosic and more deeply expressive. The musical relationships with Handel s opera arias are evident in the ingenuity of his characterisation and the expressive, articulate melodies with which the soprano and the violin obbligato create their vivid images. The young German soprano Marie Friederike Schöder is accompanied in her beautiful interpretation of the arias by the specialist ensemble Batzdorfer Hofkapelle.
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Lucy Crowe, Elizabeth Watts, La Nuova Musica & David Bates – Lucy Crowe, Elizabeth Watts, La Nuova Musica & David Bates (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:36 minutes | 1,22 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Music for Holy Week. François Couperin’s ‘Leçons de Ténèbres’ (c. 1713-17), a setting of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, fused devotional expression with a dramatic performing style embodied here by sopranos Lucy Crowe and Elizabeth Watts. Two Trio Sonatas and a ‘Stabat Mater’ by Sébastien de Brossard round out this luminous programme.
La Nuova Musica was founded by its artistic director David Bates in 2007 whilst in residency at Snape Maltings and was hailed by BBC Radio 3 as “one of the most exciting consorts in the early music field”. They are regular contributors at Aldeburgh Music, St John’s Smith Square, London Handel Festival, Wigmore Hall and Spitalfields Music. Highlights of 2015 were a performance of ‘Acis and Galatea’ at SJSS which received a 5* review in The Times, describing it as “a reading that sparkled from the giddy overture to the consoling final chorus” followed by a concert performance of Cesti’s ‘Orontea’, where “Bates’ conducting had superb poise, and the cast was impeccable, with not a weak link anywhere” (The Guardian).
In 2016 LNM will also record Pergolesi’s ‘Stabat Mater’ and Bach Cantatas with Lucy Crowe and Tim Mead. Concert performance highlights for 2016 include Handel’s ‘Berenice’ at the Göttingen Internationale Händel Festspiele; their debut at the Salzburg Festival with Bejun Mehta; and an exciting collaboration with American choreographer Zack Winokur on Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’ at the Brighton International Festival, with Dame Ann Murray singing the title role.
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Lawrence Zazzo, David Bates, La Nuova Musica – A Royal Trio: Arias by Handel, Bononcini & Ariosti (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:18:02 minutes | 1,42 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
The “royal trio” referred to in the title of this Harmonia Mundi release is a trio of composers associated with London’s Royal Academy of Music, an opera company formed by a group of aristocrats around 1719. The company shrewdly hired the newly arrived George Frideric Handel as its orchestra director; he in turn programed his own music and recruited some impressive singers, including the great Italian castrato Senesino. Given the impossibility of replicating the muscular sound of the castrati in a modern context, singers divide broadly into two groups: those who try to give their voices as much heft as possible, and those who pursue a different, more lyrical sound instead. American countertenor Lawrence Zazzo falls into the latter category. He has little power in his lower register, but he is quite distinctive at the top: of all the countertenors active today, he may be the one most likely to give the impression that it’s a woman singing. He interacts very elegantly with the small forces of the historical-instrument group La Nuova Musica and its director, David Bates. The present album derived from a program with which the forces involved had great success in live performances, and there’s an ease in the ensemble that provides a positive X factor here. Aside from the arias by Handel, most of the music qualifies as rare; the arias from operas by Giovanni Bononcini and even more so Attilio Ariosti mostly had to be rescued from old songbooks. It’s true that they have the effect of showing why Handel made the impact he did, but the overall effect is a deeper grasp on Handel’s world than most listeners will have had. Recommended especially for Handel opera aficionados.
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La Nuova Musica & David Bates – Sacrifices (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:07:12 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
David Bates leads La Nuova Musica in ‘Sacrifices’, a programme of intensely dramatic oratorios from the mid Baroque. Three poignant tales of denail and sacrifice: St Peter’s denial of Christ; Abraham’s [narrowly averted] sacrifice of his son Isaac; and the Old Testament story of Jepthe, the hero commander who, before leading the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites, vows to God that if he is victorious, he will sacrifice the first living thing he meets upon his return. Unfortunately it is his darling daughter, who dances out to greet him with cymbals and flutes. Jepthe must honour his vow… In a dramatic lament, th edaughter [she is never named] asks the mountains to bewail her fate – they answer in echoes; this is followed by one of the most moving choruses in all 17th C music. Belgian soprano Sophie Juncker is the daughter [and one to watch].
La Nuova Musica is established in the UK with regular appearances at the London Handel, the Spitalfields and Aldeburgh International festivals, and has achieved worldwide recognition and outreach through a five-record deal with harmonia mundi USA. Its debut recording for the label, released in March 2012, a world premiere on CD of the 1712 version of Handel’s ‘Il pastor Fido’, was proclaimed as the arrival of “an exceptionally talented young British ensemble” (Opera magazine). A second release, of Handel and Vivaldi ‘Dixit Dominus’, followed in 2013. After its recent debut at Wigmore Hall – performing Francesco Conti’s ‘L’Issipile’ with an all-star cast – The Guardian acclaimed the group as going “from strength to strength”. A disc of Handel, Bononcini and Ariosti arias, with countertenor Lawrence Zazzo, will be released on October 13th.
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La Nuova Musica & David Bates – Handel’s Unsung Heroes (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:11:14 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Instrumentalists put centre stage : after their acclaimed recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, La Nuova Musica and David Bates propose this project, “Handel’s Unsung Heroes”, in which the instrumentalists of Handel’s operas are put centre stage. Traditionally restricted to an “invisible” existence in the orchestra pit, La Nuova Musica’s obbligato instrumentalists – violinist Thomas Gould, oboist Leo Duarte and bassoonist Joe Qiu – are now in the limelight. They will stand as equal partners alongside a world-class line up of soloists – soprano Lucy Crowe, mezzo-soprano Christine Rice and countertenor Iestyn Davies – showing how Handel wrote music as virtuosic and lyrical for his unsung heroes as for their singing counterparts. The album includes arias from Handel’s masterpieces such as Rinaldo, Giulio Cesare, Agrippina and Ariodante.
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David Bates, Rebecca Bottone, Sophie Bevan, Iestyn Davies – Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice, Wq. 30 [Live] (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:28:33 minutes | 1,55 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
La Nuova Musica presents a new live recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, with countertenor star Iestyn Davies singing the title role. Once created to reinstate the “noble simplicity and calm grandeur” of ancient Greek culture, the opera continues to delight audiences with its direct and unpretentious appeal, epitomized by the world-famous aria “Che farò senza Euridice”. This live recording presents the original 1762 Vienna premiere version of the opera, with Gluck’s exquisite evocation of the Elysian Fields from his 1774 Paris version as a small addition.
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