Mariana Flores & Quito Gato – Alfonsina: Canciones argentinas (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:00:23 minutes | 966 MB | Genre: Classical, Vocal, World, Latin
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
In this programme, the soprano Mariana Flores pays tribute to the women of Latin America, and depicts their loves, their sorrows, their joys in music with popular songs from Argentina, its wine-producing region of Cuyo and elsewhere. Accompanied by Quito Gato, who made the arrangements, on piano and guitar and Romain Lecuyer on double bass, this recital is an opportunity for listeners to discover some of the most beautiful popular songs of the twentieth century from the musicians’ homeland, including Dorotea la cautiva and Alfonsina y el mar from Ariel Ramírez’s collection Mujeres Argentinas , published in 1968.
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Mariana Flores, Cappella Mediterranea, Leonardo García Alarcón – Monteverdi: Lettera amorosa (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:04:49 minutes | 992 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ricercar
After the success of their album of music by Franceco Cavalli, the Cappella Mediterranea and Mariana Flores now present a programme devoted entirely to works for solo voice by Claudio Monteverdi, from the famous Lamento dArianna to the sublime (and much less well known) Voglio da vita uscir. Mariana Flores embodies here the most touching personalities of this section of Monteverdis output. Argentinean soprano Mariana Flores studied singing at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Since then she has lived and worked in Basel. She regularly sings early operas and vocal literature alongside fine ensembles like the Cappella Mediterranea. The ensemble Cappella Mediterranea was founded in 2005 by the Argentinian conductor Leonardo García-Alarcón. As its name indicates, the ensemble originally arose from a passion for the music of the Mediterranean basin, and aimed to propose a different approach to Baroque music of the Latin tradition. With more than forty-five concerts each year, the ensemble explores the madrigal, the polyphonic motet and opera, a mixture of genres that has molded a unique style characterized by an exceptionally close rapport between the conductor and his musicians.
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Hopkinson Smith, Mariana Flores – Dowland: Whose Heavenly Touch (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:42 minutes | 963 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © naïve classique
“In his darker works, one is abandoned at the depths of a dry well, far from any light, alone with ogres and demons, and just as Dowland goes to extremes in his textual allusions, in a like manner he will twist and turn the lutenist’s hands to wring the excruciating essence from the text. In another moment, he can elicit an almost ferocious capriciousness with as many colours as a rainbow where the lute, which was his instrument of torture a few minutes before, suddenly rises to unexpected heights of lightness and eloquent folly.”
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Christian Immler, Clematis, Leonardo García-Alarcón – Bach & Böhm: Music for Weddings and other Festivities (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:08:05 minutes | 626 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ricercar
Let us once more immerse ourselves in the musical life of Eisenach as it was at the end of the 1670s. One Sunday afternoon, after having played for the services in their respective churches, the cousins Johann Ambrosius Bach and Johann Christoph Bach were sitting in a Bierstube, each with a mug of beer and a meerschaum pipe. A moment of relaxation, with word games, laughter and a discussion about Johann Christoph’s coming marriage. There would naturally be music for the wedding, with a cantata for the church service at the very least. That particular Sunday morning’s cantata had been based on texts from the Song of Solomon — not Böhm’s, of course, because Böhm had only been born in 1661. The sensual and at times erotic flavour of the words amuses them and, after several beers and pipefuls of tobacco, they have an idea for a secular cantata for the festivities that will follow the wedding ceremony. Christoph will compose the music, whilst Ambrosius will put together the text and instructions for its performance. Even though we do not know how this cantata was performed, its score has survived complete with all of its the puzzles and riddles.
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