Elinor Frey / Lorenzo Ghielmi BERLIN SONATAS

 

BERLIN SONATAS

 

Elinor Frey ANTONIO VANDINI Complete Works

 

COMPLETE WORKS

Elinor Frey GUIDED BY VOICES

This project of commissioning new music for Baroque cello began with the birth of a new instrument. I had commissioned a five-string cello – made in Montréal in 2012 by Francis Beaulieu – and wanted to expand my use of the five- string instrument beyond its few famous pieces (J.S. Bach’s sixth suite, for example). 

This led to a new work by Scott Godin and then to pieces from Isaiah Ceccarelli and Ken Ueno. In a sense, I had the same desire to expand my use of the (now more standard) four-string Baroque cello, an instrument that I was using to perform mostly Early Music until this commissioning project took flight. When modern composers write a new piece for “Baroque” cello (whether four- or five-string) it becomes an instrument of today, helping to expand the sound worlds of both the cello and new music audiences. For the works written for four-string Baroque cello by Linda Smith, Maxime McKinley, and Lisa Streich, I also used a new instrument, made by Karl Dennis in 2018, and on both cellos a bow by Pieter Affourtit made in 2016. 

The project showcases the cello’s non-standard sizes and non-standard tuning of the strings, as well as the instruments themselves, made by living artists. Indeed, playing new music on new instruments were the norms for 17th- and 18th- century performers. Each work reveals the cello’s incredible versatility and remarkable colours, capable of inspiring some of today’s outstanding composers. Dedicated to Maxime McKinley with gratitude for your humour and kindness. (Elinor Frey)

Pallade Musica SCHIEFERLEIN Sonates en trio

Mélisande McNabney performs keyboard music of all periods, on harpsichord, piano and fortepiano. In August 2015, she received the third prize at the International Competition Musica Antiqua in Bruges, Belgium.

Mélisande has performed hundreds of concerts, whether as a soloist or chamber musician, in Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia in prestigious concert series. Currently based in Montreal, she is regularly invited to play with ensembles such as Les Violons du Roy, Arion Orchestre Baroque, Les Idées heureuses, the Theater of Early Music, and Ensemble Caprice. She is also a member of Pallade Musica and Ensemble Les Songes.

Baroque ensemble Pallade Musica offers a glimpse into the world of Otto Ernst Gregorius Schieferlein, a German Baroque composer.   Among the few works that have been attributed to Schieferlein are a wedding cantata, and the three trio sonatas that are recorded here for the first time. They have survived in an 18th-century manuscript copy from the library of the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Pallade Musica’s second ATMA recording also includes works by G. P. Telemann and C. P. E. Bach.