It’s fitting that this exciting new release from classical guitarist Karin Schaupp and the Flinders Quartet should end with Australian composer Phillip Houghton’s In Amber. As Houghton writes in his booklet note, “I drew parallels between a fossil ‘frozen/suspended’ in amberstone and the sound frozen/suspended inside the stringed instruments waiting to be brought to life.” One can just as easily talk about music being frozen/suspended inside a score, waiting to be brought to life, as well as living, breathing performances being frozen/suspended inside a shiny CD. Moreover, Houghton’s In Amber – its first movement filled with characterful miniature dances; its second with drones and melodies like “perfumes in a jungle” and its third with a compelling motoric intensity – summarises the whole program’s moods and ideas, bound by the sounds of plucked and bowed strings. Take Máximo Diego Pujol’s Tangata de Agosto (“August Tangata” – the latter word a conflation of “tango” and “sonata”), which recalls Piazzolla in its earthy sophistication; or Boccherini’s Guitar Quintet No 4 Fandango, which fills the Viennese salon with the raucous sounds of guitar and castanets; or the anonymous arrangement of Haydn’s String Quartet No 8 in E for lute (in this case, guitar), violin, viola and… Continue reading…

A striking musical chiaroscuro born in part out of the agony and the ecstasy of profound spiritual experience. 

Palestrina’s name was synonymous with musical perfection even before his death in 1594, and his reputation as one of the great masters of late-Renaissance, post-Tridentine church polyphony is still as great as it ever was. The Sixteen’s name could equally be said to be synonymous with musical perfection, and the UK choir’s recordings of English, Spanish and Italian Renaissance masterpieces are prized for their combination of passion and precision. This first volume in a projected series dedicated to a selection of Palestrina’s 104 masses and great motet cycle of the biblical Song of Songs takes as its theme the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven. The centrepiece is the Missa Assumpta Est Maria; also included are a selection of shorter works such as the motet on which the mass is based and three of the Song of Songs most closely associated with Marian devotion. The performances are, as one would expect, first-rate, and an antidote to the sometimes bloodless approach to this music by The Tallis Scholars. Palestrina’s music moves swiftly and seamlessly between densely woven yet sharply delineated polyphony and rich homophony; furthermore, each part hovers or trembles, drops in or out, plunges or soars according… Continue reading…

A hugely satisfying release from a musician with talent and technique to burn.