Merry Christmas! by Miranda van Kralingen / Matangi Quartet

Various composers

Miranda van Kralingen / Matangi Quartet

Merry Christmas!

Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917216325
Catnr: CC 72163
Release date: 02 October 2006
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Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917216325

Catalogue number
CC 72163

Release date
02 October 2006

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

The Dutch soprano Miranda van Kralingen studied with Ank Reinders at the Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam and graduated with distinction. But it was after Elisabeth Schwartzkopf's masterclass at the Concertgebouw that her career really took off: she sang Strauss's Vier letzte Lieder during the closing concert in the category "Young Dutch Talent", which was broadcast on radio and television. This lead to a host of opera and concert engagements with De Nederlandse Opera, Opera Zuid. the Nationale Reisopera. She is known as the "singing actress" both at home and abroad, where her opera career has also taken off.

Her début as Contessa in Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro was soon followed by roles in der Rosenkavalier, Don Giovanni, Die Lustige Witwe and Die Fledermaus. Impressed by her talent as an actress, the renowned director Harry Kupfer invited her to perform in Berlin at the Komische Oper's fiftieth anniversary. She made her impressive French debut in the Théâtre Champs-Élysées in Paris with Agathe (Der Freischütz). Her first performance of Tosca with the Welsh National Opera met with popular acclaim. She also sang with the Stuttgart Opera.

Miranda van Kralingen is much in demand as a concert singer in and outside Europe. Her wide repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to Messiaen. She regularly gives master classes including the piano/voice duo classes at the Orlando Festival jointly with Tan Crone.

She is also active on the chamber music scene and in the theatre, is much in demand at international chamber music festivals. In 2004/2005 she staged the theatrical concert Zangkoorts with pianist Gregor Bak, received from José Carreras in person the "José Carreras Diamond Tulip Award" in recognition of her national and international vocal achievements over the past years.

Miranda van Kralingen sang Schubert's Ave Maria at the Wedding of Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima on 02.02.02. She has been artistic director of Opera Zuid since June 2004. The Matangi Quartet. Matangi is a four-armed Indian Goddess of the spoken word and symbolises universal knowledge, including all forms of art, music and dance. As an artist, she forges her own way in society. Shortly after its formation in 1999 the young Dutch Matangi Quartet's whirlwind career took off and it is now hard to imagine the Dutch music scene without them. The four members invest all their time and energy into the string quartet. Their first CD was entitled Première (CC72164), and was followed in 2003 by the provocative single CD Bats from Hell, a piece composed for them by Chiel Meijering. In 2002 the Matangi Quartet was the recipient of two prizes: the Almere Chamber Music Prize and the Kersjes van de Groenekan Prize.

The Quartet feels at home in all sorts of repertoire from early Haydn to contemporary composers. Their scope of interest has even taken them beyond the world of classical music and into, for example, a collaborative project with the Dutch cabaret artist Herman van Veen.

The Matangi Quartet has completed an intensive two year course at the Dutch String Quartet Academy (NSKA) and since 2003 has been coached by viola player Henk Guittart of the Schoenberg Quartet. The Dutch National Musical Instrument Fund has expressed their faith in the Matangi Quartet by lending them three instruments. In 2005 Matangi recorded Skandinavia (CC72137) for Challenge Classics.

Onmisbare kerststukken
Miranda van Kralingen brengt op dit album samen met het Matangi Kwartet een groot aantal klassieke kerstliederen ten gehore.

Miranda van Kralingen is een Nederlandse sopraan, vooral bekend door haar uitvoering van Schuberts Ave Maria op de bruiloft van Willem-Alexander en Máxima in 2002. Zij studeerde aan het Sweelinck conservatorium in Amsterdam. Ze heeft samengewerkt met De Nederlandse Opera, de Nationale Reisopera en Opera Zuid — waar zij sinds 2004 als artistiek leidinggevende fungeert. Zowel nationaal als internationaal staat Van Kralingen bekend als de “singing actress.”

Het Matangi Kwartet werd in 1999 opgericht, en sindsdien kan het beschouwd worden als een van de avontuurlijkste strijkkwartetten in de Nederlandse muziekscene. Het kwartet speelt allerlei soorten muziek: van de vroege Haydn tot hedendaagse componisten. Door hun brede interesse zijn ze zelfs buiten het veld van de klassieke muziek getreden om samenwerkingen met bijvoorbeeld Herman van Veen aan te gaan.

Artist(s)

Matangi Quartet

The Matangi Quartet was founded in 1999 by four young musicians then studying at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Conservatory of Rotterdam. In 2003 Matangi completed the two-year, full-time course at the Netherlands String Quartet Academy under the direction of Stefan Metz (cellist, Orlando Quartet). At the Academy, the Matangi Quartet had the opportunity to take lessons from international renowned musicians, including the members of the Amadeus Quartet. The quartet also received intensive mentoring from Henk Guittart (violist, Schönberg Quartet) for several years. The Matangi Quartet has since developed into a regular performer in the Dutch chamber music scene and abroad. With their impassioned playing and smart presentation, Maria-Paula, Daniel, Karsten and Arno epitomize a new generation of...

The Matangi Quartet was founded in 1999 by four young musicians then studying at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and the Conservatory of Rotterdam. In 2003 Matangi completed the two-year, full-time course at the Netherlands String Quartet Academy under the direction of Stefan Metz (cellist, Orlando Quartet). At the Academy, the Matangi Quartet had the opportunity to take lessons from international renowned musicians, including the members of the Amadeus Quartet. The quartet also received intensive mentoring from Henk Guittart (violist, Schönberg Quartet) for several years.
The Matangi Quartet has since developed into a regular performer in the Dutch chamber music scene and abroad. With their impassioned playing and smart presentation, Maria-Paula, Daniel, Karsten and Arno epitomize a new generation of classical musicians. They are often characterized by words such as communicative, provocative and refreshingly versatile. The Matangi Quartet has shared the stage with various top-class classical musicians such as the Schönberg Quartet, the Royal Quartet, Miranda van Kralingen, Tania Kross, Ivo Janssen, Paolo Giacometti and Severin von Eckardstein.
The quartet has also been invited to perform in various festivals and concert series, including the Delft Chamber Music Festival, the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival, the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Orlando Festival, the Robeco Summer Concert Series in Amsterdam, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Festival van Carthage in Tunisia, the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai and the International Conservatoire Festival in St Petersburg. Since 2005 the quartet has presented its own concert series in the ‘Beurs van Berlage’ in Amsterdam.
In 2002 Matangi was awarded the prestigious Kersjes van de Groenekan Award, an annual prize awarded to exceptional chamber music talent in the Netherlands. In 2008 the quartet won third prize at the International Joseph Joachim Chamber Music Competition in Weimar. The Matangi Quartet released several CDs issued by Challenge Records International which all received great critical acclaim. The latest releases were the CDs ‘Mendelssohn’ (2009) and ‘Candybox’ (2010). Together with viola da gamba player Ralph Rousseau the quartet won the Edison Audience Award 2009, for their CD ‘Chansons d’amour’ (Challenge Records 2008).
Matangi regularly participates in innovative crossover projects and has performed in collaboration with artists such as cabaretiers Herman van Veen and Youp van ’t Hek, bandoneon player Carel Kraayenhof, jazz trumpeter Eric Vloeimans, DJ Kypski, jazz vocalists Mathilde Santing and Renske Taminiau, singer songwriters Lory Liebermann and Tom McRae. These pioneering excursions beyond the borders of classical music have resulted in Matangi winning an enthusiastic new public for the string quartet. No less important, this has provided a source of inspiration for infusing performances of the rich classical repertoire built up over the past 250 years – from Haydn to Adès – with new élan. For essentially, the Matangi are focused on just one thing: letting the audience palpably experience the energy, passion and excitement that is inherent in all good music.
All four musicians perform on instruments of Dutch workmanship. The cello and first violin have been provided on loan by the Dutch National Musical Instrument Foundation.
Who is Matangi? Matangi is the Indian goddess of speech, music and writing. The vina that she carries in her hand is an instrument that produces deep sounds with pleasing overtones. Matangi transports her listeners with her playing on the strings of passion, fervour, love and ecstasy.

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Miranda van Kralingen

The career of the Dutch soprano Miranda van Kralingen took off after taking part in Elisabeth Schwartzkopf’s masterclass at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam: she sang Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder during the closing concert in the category “Young Dutch Talent”, which was broadcast on radio and television. And this lead to a host of opera and concert engagements. She sang one of the leading roles in the world premiere of Louis Andriessen‘s Rosa, A Horse Drama with De Nederlandse Opera (released on CD); she sang Die Freundin in Arnold Schönberg‘s Von heute auf Morgen, and interpreted the role of Mimì in La Bohème and that of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Opera Zuid. In addition she has collaborated regularly with the...

The career of the Dutch soprano Miranda van Kralingen took off after taking part in Elisabeth Schwartzkopf’s masterclass at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam: she sang Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder during the closing concert in the category “Young Dutch Talent”, which was broadcast on radio and television. And this lead to a host of opera and concert engagements.
She sang one of the leading roles in the world premiere of Louis Andriessen‘s Rosa, A Horse Drama with De Nederlandse Opera (released on CD); she sang Die Freundin in Arnold Schönberg‘s Von heute auf Morgen, and interpreted the role of Mimì in La Bohème and that of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni with Opera Zuid. In addition she has collaborated regularly with the Nationale Reisopera. Miranda van Kralingen is known as the “singing actress” both at home and abroad, and her career as an opera singer has also taken off abroad, where her début as Contessa in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro was soon followed by roles in der Rosenkavalier, Don Giovanni, Die Lustige Witwe and Die Fledermaus.Her first performance of Tosca with the Welsh National Opera met with popular acclaim.
Miranda van Kralingen is much in demand as a concert singer in and outside Europe. Her wide repertoire ranges from Monteverdi to Messiaen. Performances have included Messiaen‘s Les poémes pour Mi in collaboration with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Ed Spanjaard and Berlioz’ Les nuits d’été in collaboration with the Residentie Orkest. She regularly gives master classes including the piano/voice duo classes, given at the Orlando Festival in Rolduc jointly with Tan Crone.
She is also active on the chamber music scene, having collaborated with chamber ensembles such as the Borodin Quartet, the Escher Trio, the Matangi Quartet and the Grieg Trio, and is much in demand at international chamber music festivals.
Miranda van Kralingen has also performed for the Royal Household on a number of state occasions, including: the 25th Wedding Anniversary of the Queen Beatrix and Prince Claus; a State Visit carried out by the Royal Couple; and last but not least, the Wedding of Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Máxima in Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk on 02.02.02 where she sang Schubert’s Ave Maria.

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Maria-Paula Majoor

Daniel Torrico Menacho

Karsten Kleijer

Nander Cirkel

Composer(s)

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria. His reputation and status as a composer is such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. Brahms, an uncompromising perfectionist, destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Within his meticulous structures is embedded, however, a highly romantic nature.

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Manuel de Falla

From the end of 1890, de Falla studied piano at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid in Madrid under José Tragó and Felipe Pedrell. Under their influence, he got interested into the native Spanish music, especially the flamenco music of Andalusia and more specifically the cante jondo, of which he publiced a manuscript called El cante jondo. Influences of this can be found throughout his body of works. His first major work was an opera (zarzuela) in one act from 1905 La vida breve, which did not premier until 1913. From 1907 to 1914 De Falla stayed in Paris, where he got inspired by composers such Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy and Paul Dukas. During this time, he wrote little music. Much of his much most famous works were composed upon arrival in Madrid at the start of the First World War, such as his Noches en los jardines de España, El amor brujo and El corregidor y la molinera, which after an adaption is now know as El sombrero de tres picos. From 1921 to 1939, he lived in Granada where composed his El retablo de maese Pedro. The harpsichord part was specifically written for Wanda Landowska. Slowly, the Spanish folk music influences decreased and he adopted a more neo-classicistic style.

In 1939 De Falla moved to Argentina, where he died in 1946.

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