The Spirit of Venice by Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam

Various composers

Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam

The Spirit of Venice

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Globe
UPC: 8711525523500
Catnr: GLO 5235
Release date: 07 January 2010
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Label
Globe

UPC
8711525523500

Catalogue number
GLO 5235

Release date
07 January 2010

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Artist(s)

Brisk Recorder Quartet Amsterdam

BRISK, the ensemble’s name, is intended to convey an idea of liveliness and wakefulness. A critic once described the ensemble as providing “a coup de grâce for the recorder’s respectable image”. BRISK’s concerts exhibit variation of style and mood, virtuosity and light-heartedness in equal measure. The quartet always appear on stage with an enormous assembly of recorders. Since their founding in 1986, BRISK has given many concerts in important concert halls and festivals throughout Europe, in Bolivia, Canada and the USA. BRISK has recorded for radio and television both in the Netherlands and abroad, as well as recording over ten CDs that have been well received by both press and public. Its daring programming of early music in combination with contemporary...

Its daring programming of early music in combination with contemporary music is designed to expand the borders of the ensemble’s repertoire. Many composers have dedicated works to the quartet. BRISK works regularly with fellow musicians as well as with artists from other related disciplines such as actors, directors, librettists and film-makers.

BRISK made its name through lively performances of early music, the search for little-known repertoire, and for the many arrangements that the ensemble has made, which suit the style and tradition of the instrument. BRISK has collaborated with Amaryllis Dieltiens, Michael Chance, Marcel Beekman, Johannette Zomer, Maarten Koningsberger, the Egidius Kwartet, the Gesualdo Consort, Bernard Winsemius, Leo van Doeselaar, Rainer Zipperling, Mike Fentross and Camerata Trajectina amongst others.

The long list of composers that have written music for the quartet includes Martijn Padding, Kate Moore, Calliope Tsoupaki, Bart Visman, Klaas de Vries, Roderik de Man and many others.

New works are presented as a comment on or as a contrast to older works in BRISK’s programmes. There is also a large quantity of new music in BRISK’s programmes for younger audiences. BRISK regularly gives concerts in collaboration with specialists in contemporary music such as pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama, composer and improviser Guus Janssen, vocalist Greetje Bijma and percussionist Ramon Lormans.

BRISK has created a number of highly successful productions for children with directors David Prins, Jetse Batelaan, Marc Krone, Gienke Deuten and actors Porgy Franssen, Bart Kiene and Hans Thissen.

The quartet possesses a great variety of instruments; its extensive contacts with recorder makers throughout the world ensure that its collection is in a state of continual development. This variety of instruments enables the ensemble to perform works from the Renaissance and the Baroque as well as the 20th and 21st centuries in their correct tuning and with the correct timbre.

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Composer(s)

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognised as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi (who had been ordained as a Catholic priest) was employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had some...

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognised as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe. He composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than forty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as The Four Seasons.
Many of his compositions were written for the female music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home for abandoned children where Vivaldi (who had been ordained as a Catholic priest) was employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had some success with expensive stagings of his operas in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping for preferment. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and Vivaldi himself died less than a year later in poverty.

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Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert can be viewed as pivot point between the late Renaissance and the early Baroque. Born in Bruges, he soon moved to Italy for his education. There, he worked for a short period in Ferrara to eventually settle in Venice, where he worked until his death for the St Mark's Basilica - a period of over 34 years. Besides his activities as a musician and a composer, he also educated a unique group of talented students, among which Cipriano de Rore and Costanzo Porta. A central part of his body of works is the large number of motets, especially the influential collection Musica nova, published in 1559. A few years before, he already caused a stir with polyphonic compositions for each of the seasons (like the vespers), in which hymnes for the whole Ecclesial year could be found. This focus on the seasons is remarkbable for his age, in which composers mostly focused on composing missas. Willaert also played an important part in the development of the instrumental ricercare. Moreover, he was also an important predeccesor to the rich polyphonic choral tradition of Venice.

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Anonymous

Cipriano de Rore

Saskia Coolen

In 2012, recorder player Saskia Coolen discovered by chance, in the Historical Museum in Den Briel, the head joint of an alto recorder, made by the instrument maker Engelbert Terton. She brought in the recorder builder and expert Jan Bouterse who thoroughly cleaned and restored the joint. He suggested that there might well be other playble recorders to be found in private collections. In the years since then, Saskia’s research has turned up six forgotten eighteenth-century recorders: five altos and a sopranino. On this album she plays these rediscovered recorders, together with gambist Rainer Zipperling and harpsichordist Patrick Ayrton, in eighteenth-century music by De Fesch, Nozeman, Van Wassenaer and other contemporaries. In 2004 Saskia also played on historic recorders, from the collection...

In 2012, recorder player Saskia Coolen discovered by chance, in the Historical Museum in Den Briel, the head joint of an alto recorder, made by the instrument maker Engelbert Terton. She brought in the recorder builder and expert Jan Bouterse who thoroughly cleaned and restored the joint. He suggested that there might well be other playble recorders to be found in private collections. In the years since then, Saskia’s research has turned up six forgotten eighteenth-century recorders: five altos and a sopranino.
On this album she plays these rediscovered recorders, together with gambist Rainer Zipperling and harpsichordist Patrick Ayrton, in eighteenth-century music by De Fesch, Nozeman, Van Wassenaer and other contemporaries.
In 2004 Saskia also played on historic recorders, from the collection of the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, resulting in the album Recorders Recorded.

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Andrea Gabrieli

Andrea Gabrieli is being considered as one of the most seminal Venetian composers of the Renaissance age. Yet, details about his life are scarce. In previous studies his year of birth was estimated to be around 1510 and he was thought to be a student of Adrian Willaert, who was the kapellmeister of St Mark's Basilica at the time. In the 1980s, however, registers were discovered showing not only his date of death (August 30, 1585) but also showed he was 'about 52 years old', making his year of birth 1533. One thing that is certain is that between 1562 and 1565 he stayed in Germany, in Munich, to work with Orlando Di Lasso. In 1566 he became the main organist of...

Andrea Gabrieli is being considered as one of the most seminal Venetian composers of the Renaissance age. Yet, details about his life are scarce. In previous studies his year of birth was estimated to be around 1510 and he was thought to be a student of Adrian Willaert, who was the kapellmeister of St Mark's Basilica at the time. In the 1980s, however, registers were discovered showing not only his date of death (August 30, 1585) but also showed he was "about 52 years old", making his year of birth 1533.

One thing that is certain is that between 1562 and 1565 he stayed in Germany, in Munich, to work with Orlando Di Lasso. In 1566 he became the main organist of St Mark's Basilica in Venice.

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