Forma Antiqva / Aarón Zapico BASET Symphonies. Madrid, 1753

SYMPHONIES. MADRID, 1753

Forma Antiqva / Aarón Zapico ANTONIO VIVALDI The Four Seasons

The starting point of this recording is Vivaldi's sonnets, which describe in almost trivial seeming episodes the changing seasons. Caine and Bleckmann have set these sonnets to music like a delicate spring song, the summer turns into an electronic experiment. The autumn leaves come along in a poppy way, frosty the mystically recited winter. Afterwards the young wild ones of Forma Antiqva under the musical direction of Aarón Zapico may play the Vivaldi concertos. […] Their sound is clear and pure, but is also capable of sounding pretty dirty. Then it is pure Rock 'n' Roll. On this CD every flower, every bird, every snowflake breathes. A subtle and fierce Vivaldi in one recording, which shows that these Four Seasons are still far from being ultimately invented. (Radio NDR)

… the Four Seasons are of such enchanting, captivating, haunting and colourful vibrancy, that this can rightly be called a reference recording of historical performing practice: … Aarón Zapico and Forma Antiqva succeed in presenting an expressive, three-dimensional abundance of highest narrative strength, Aitor Hevia plays the violin in a vivid, present, virtuosic and variable style. […] Uri Caine and Theo Bleckmann dare to contribute their own versions of spring, summer, autumn and winter preceding every concerto, performed and … declaimed with the means of our days … It's more than music, an AudioFilm between baroque and contemporary music … (Jazzpodium)

It is a harsh, experimental approach to these famous pieces, highly virtuosic and full of suspense, interrupted by the sweet moments of the slow movements. But when the summer thunderstorm comes and unloads or the floating ice sheets crack under highest tension on the lagoon this is unheard of thus far ... [One of the most fascinating albums of the last months.] (Radio MDR Figaro)  

Barbara Hannigan / Reinbert De Leeuw ERIK SATIE Socrate

Raise your bowler hat. If you are to buy just one Satie disc in this year celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth, this should be it. Eschewing the temptation to throw in a few popular favourites, such as Je te veux or La diva de l’Empire, soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Reinbert de Leeuw have created a recital that goes much deeper into the refined essence of the composer.

The focus is Satie’s often overlooked masterpiece, the cantata Socrate. Started in 1916, but not heard until 1919, it sets portions of Plato’s dialogues in a manner that Satie himself described as lucid, transparent, even fragile. In order to be in an appropriate frame of mind during its composition, the composer even restricted himself to eating only white food. The result is a hypnotic work that gives every impression of having neither beginning nor end and is vital to understanding key works by Les Six or Stravinsky in the 1920s, not least the latter’s ballet Apollo. Drawing on a long association with Satie’s music, Hannigan and De Leeuw perfectly capture the elusive, emotionally detached nature of the work in a manner that paradoxically makes it more affecting. Alcibiades’s declaration in the first part that ‘I speak not in jest; nothing could be more serious’ may or may not be pointing to Dadaist irony, but their poker-faced performance of Socrate ensures that it is quixotically charming and demands rapt attention.

It is prefaced by two much earlier sets of mélodies and the meditative Hymne; helpfully, all the lyrics are available in French, English and German on the Winter & Winter website. The Hymne was written in 1891 for Sar Peladan’s Ordre de la Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, of which Satie was official composer and chapel-master. The Trois mélodies are earlier works, from 1886; their first words, ‘dressed in white’ could not be more apposite for this disc. They may be youthful love songs, yet the essence of Satie’s character is already apparent in the Spartan accompaniments and deceptively undemonstrative vocal lines. De Leeuw’s placing of the simple, though far from simplistic, sequences of piano chords is perfectly judged, while Hannigan somehow manages to convey vulnerability within the exceptional control required for the sustained restraint of Satie’s vocal lines. 

The most energetic the music gets in this recital is the relaxed stroll of the Trois autres mélodies of 1886-1906, but the repertoire feels neither constricted nor dull. Hannigan and De Leeuw are mesmerising, casting a spell from the very first notes of the opening ‘Les Anges’ that remains unbroken until the characteristically unexpected end of Socrate. It feels all- too-brief, yet would seem the same if it were two or three times as long, for this is a timeless recital. (Christopher Dingle / BBC Music)