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Ensemble P.A.N. (Project Ars Nova): new Cantus artists
Thanks to a license agreement negotiated with Foster
Reed, owner of the prestigious American label, Albion Records, we can
announce excellent news: the 4 legendary medieval and early Renaissance
recordings that Ensemble P.A.N. taped for Albion Records between 1987
and 1994 are going to be reprinted by Cantus. These most beautiful recordings
that marked an epoch when originally released, had been almost out of
the market and regular international distribution for some time now.
On buying these licenses, Cantus pretends to recover these precious
recordings for all early music lovers. We intend to prepare brand new
editions with new sleeves, booklet notes, translations of the liner
commentaries and sung texts and new designs, and all this at a very
attractive price, because the 4 recordings will re-appear grouped in
two 2 CD sets of our series The Mirror Collection As you will probably now, our series, The Mirror
Collection, includes, in 2 CDs for the price of 1, music by two
contemporary but stylistically different composers, or sometimes two
different repertories of more or less the same epoch that complement
each other. Until now we have released two volumes in the The Mirror
collection series: C 9701/2
Telemann/Bach: suites, sonatas & triosonatas ( The 4 CDs of Ensemble P.A.N. that we shall release grouped in two 2 CDs sets, present also different but complementary repertoires, in consonance with The Mirror Collection series philosophy. The first of the new 2 CD sets will be C 9707/8 Aspre Fortune and will contain the very two first Ensemble P.A.N. recordings, devoted to two important manuscripts of early French courtly music, Codex Chantilly, culmination of the Ars Subtilior, and the fascinating Torino Biblioteca Nazionale s.J.II.9 MS, that contains anonymous French music from the Cypriot court, with no known concordances, and that represents and evolution of the Ars Subtilior style towards the Franco-flemish chansons of the beginning of the 15th century. In other words, the first double set will present French courtly music between ca. 1370 and 1420, an essential period in the formation and consolidation of the secular repertories through chansons of delicate and subtle beauty, frequently tingled a characteristic melancholy of the time, which has prompted us to chose the title, Aspre Fortune (Harsh fortune) from one of the pieces included in the discs. The second double CD set will be the C 9709/10
Ce noble fleur (This noble flower) ( In a few days time we shall include more complete technical and musical information on these two coming Cantus CDs, in the “Next releases” chapter of the “New releases” section. |
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New artists for Cantus
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Piracy against CantusLast July 2002 the Provincial Court of Madrid dictated sentence (which cannot be appealed) in favour of Cantus in the lawsuit against the label Enchiriadis, who had committed an act of piracy against Cantus in December 2000. In that date, the pirate label released a recording that had been stolen in our offices by an ex partner of us. Then they published the recording, which more or less corresponds to our ref. C 9627 Morales: Requiem, performed by Musica Ficta and Raúl Mallavibarrena. They used a pre-editing of the final master, full of mistakes, and tried to present it as if it was the original recording and their copyright. And although the sentence of the Provincial Court of Madrid is in our favour, nor the label nor their distributor, Diverdi (and their international subdistributors) have yet retired the pirate recording from the market. This has obliged Cantus to use penal prosecution and proceed against the label Enchiriadis, Diverdi and all international distributors of the label, as they are dealing with illegal material. All early music lovers are kindly advised by Cantus not to buy at all the pirated version. Firstly because it is illegal, secondly because the Cantus presentation, translations and inner booklet is far superior, and thirdly because the pirated version contains a large number of mistakes, childish mistakes, because it was manufactured using a stolen pre-edited version! While we try to effectively contact international distributors of the label that has committed piracy in order to retire all illegal Cds from international market, Cantus cannot accept any responsibilities if customers find the pirate version deceitful, as they will most probably do. |
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C 9605 Schiarazula Marazula: “Quite simply, this is the finest single recorded program of dance music from the High and Late Renaissance.” (American Record Guide)One of our finest recordings, C 9605 Schiarazula Marazula, has received an extraordinary review from American Record Guide. The full text of this review is the following: American Record Guide There are by now innumerable recordings of Renaissance dance pieces, by themselves or mixed in with other material. For the most part, they have offered repetitions of the basic tunes or simple part-structures that have come down to us, with some embellishment or instrumental variation. But, as often as not, such performances have just been opportunities for early-music groups to show off their arsenals of quaint old instruments, applied willy-nilly. Just how superficial many past treatments have been is made clear by this new program, which prompts one to think seriously and deeply about this literature as never before. The starting-point is the excellent set of multilingual essays in the album's thick and profusely illustrated booklet. They begin with a backround discussion of the origins of dancing at the roots of cultural, social, and ritual traditions, and then they proceed to probing annotations for every piece in the program. (Did you ever wonder about the meaning - verbal and musical - of Schiarazula Marazula, the program's title selection? Well, there are over four columns of discussion of that alone here, and a fascinating matter it proves to be.) The program draws on three collections of dances. First, 18 selections are taken from the Primo Libro de Balli published in Venice in 1578 by the curious clerical polymath Giorgio Mainerio (c. 1535-82). At the far end is a group of seven selections published as his Book III in 1627 by Carlo Farina, a violinist who was then working in Dresden under Schütz. In between are 11 pieces preserved in a rich manuscript now in Munich. There is a lot of wonderful music here, some familiar but mostly little known. Impressive, too, is what these performers make of it all. 14 musicians of international backround and working on a wide range of instruments have prepared their realizations through extended experimentation together, working out the character, embellishment, and instrumentation of these pieces. The results are wonderfully vital, spontaneous, colorful, and persuasive. Their work has been captured with a vivid sense of physical presence and realism. Quite simply, this is the finest single recorded program of dance music from the High and Late Renaissance. Every early-music collector should have it, and will listen to it repeatedly with ever-renewable delight. Gosh, what a wanderful release! BARKER |
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American
guitarist and lutenist, Michael Craddock, who is at present living in
Basel, is the performer of one of our next releases,