Lamento by Oslo Circles

Various composers

Oslo Circles

Lamento

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Lawo Classics
UPC: 7090020182483
Catnr: LWC 1226
Release date: 18 February 2022
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Label
Lawo Classics

UPC
7090020182483

Catalogue number
LWC 1226

Release date
18 February 2022

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

"OSTINATI LAMENTI"
The lament is a literary genre that developed – with various names – in Roman languages in the Middle Ages, which typically involves a character complaining in the first person about unrequited love, loss or even their own death. It became very popular in Italy during the Renaissance, due predominantly to the expansion of the publishing industry and renewed interest in the Greek and Latin classics, for example the laments Ludovico Ariosto borrowed from Ovid, including the weeping Olympia. The economic crisis of the early seventeenth century and the remorseful climate of the Counter- Reformation inspired authors to write ever-greater numbers of sacred and secular laments, and these were increasingly frequently in verse form, designed to be set to music.

On this recording, featuring Norwegian Baroque ensemble Oslo Circles and mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland, the listener will hear examples of the lament form by Italian composers such as Frescobaldi, Mealli, Merula, Uccellini, Kapsberger, Monteverdi and others.

Artist(s)

Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo soprano)

“A singer with such charisma challenged her colleagues.” (Dreh-Punkt-Kultur) Mezzo-soprano Marianne Beate Kielland is famous for her strong stage presence and musical integrity. Gramophone Magazine writes about her: “The mezzo-soprano is quite outstanding: strong, firm, sensitive in modulations, imaginative in her treatment of words, with a voice pure in quality, wide in range and unfalteringly true in intonation.” She graduated from the Norwegian Academy of Music, where she studied with Svein Bjørkøy. Her other teachers have included Oren Brown and Barbara Bonney. Considered today one of Europe’s leading singers, she performs regularly on major concert stages in Europe, America and The East with conductors such as Masaaki Suzuki, Andrew Manze, Petr Popelka, Michel Corboz, Leonardo Alarcon, Herbert Blomstedt, Jordi Savall, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Fabio Biondi and René Jacobs.
In 2012 she received a Grammy nomination in the category ‘Best Classical Vocal Solo’ for her recording of Veslemøy Synsk by the composer Olav Anton Thommessen. In 2021 she received a prestigious OPUS Klassik nomination in the category ‘Female Singer of the Year’ for her recording of Schumann Lieder. With more than sixty other albums in addition to a demanding concert schedule, Marianne Beate Kielland is established as an exceptional performer with a wide-ranging repertoire from baroque to contemporary.
Together with pianist Nils Anders Mortensen she has previously released 12 recordings on the LAWO Classics label: Früh (LWC1033), Sæle jolekveld (LWC1040), Grieg (LWC1059), Young Elling (LWC1072), The New Song (LWC1097), Whispering Mozart (LWC1111), Songs: Kielland/Dørumsgaard (LWC1145), Einsamkeit – Songs by Mahler (LWC1157), Eivind Groven Songs (LWC1178), Schumann Lieder (LWC1197) with baritone Johannes Weisser, and Så kort ein sommar menneska har – Songs by Gisle Kverndokk (LWC1220), and Sigurd Lie Songs, Vol. 1 (LWC1256).
In 2015 she released Påsketid (LWC1077) with violinist Elise Båtnes and organist Kåre Nordstoga, in 2017 Terra Nova (LWC1125) with composer and pianist Jan Gunnar Hoff, in 2020 The Lofoten Oratorio by Ketil Bjørnstad (LWC1202) with Lofoten Voices and MinEnsemblet, in 2022 Lamento (LWC1226), a collection of baroque laments, with Oslo Circles, as well as Jean Sibelius: Orchestral Songs (LWC1239) with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

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Oslo Circles

Oslo Circles was founded in Oslo in 2015 by the baroque violinist Astrid Kirschner, and consists of some of the most established musicians in Scandinavia within the world of baroque music. The members of the group regularly play in orchestras like Concerto Copenhagen, Barokksolistene, B’Rock, Barokkanerne, Academia Montis Regalis, Les Musiciens du Louvre and Helsinki Baroque Orchestra. Astrid Kirschner has gathered a “musical circle”, where all the members bring to the group their unique talent and musical experience, adding their personal input of different styles, nationalities and backgrounds. Playing in different formats has allowed Oslo Circles to adapt to various concepts and programs, with both well known and unknown baroque music. Oslo Circles has a passion for showing how modern baroque music can be – through playfulness, enthusiastic curiosity and freedom in the moment of performing.
The group works in close collaboration with David Hansen (countertenor), Mari-anne Beate Kielland (mezzo-soprano), Berit Norbakken (soprano), Magnus Staveland (tenor) and the Norwegian film actor Anders Baasmo Christiansen. Oslo Circles has performed at international music festivals like Froville (France), Baroque & Beyond (Sweden), Wunderkammer (Trieste, Italy), Spazio & Musica (Vicenza, Italy) and Varaždin Baroque Nights (Croatia), where Oslo Circles in 2019 received the prize for the festival’s best musical interpretation for this program Lamento. Oslo Circles’ first CD One Charming Night with the countertenor David Hansen, with arias & theatre music by Henry Purcell was released in november 2019. The press called the recording ‘entirely wonderful’, the musicians ‘terrifically inventive’ and the CD ‘one of the most sheerly enjoyable recordings I have heard in years’ (Martin Anderson, klassiskmusikk. com). Other press voices: ’Excellent playing and singing, a recording from the top drawer. Highly recommendable’ (musicweb-international) and ‘truly magical’ (Bayern 4 Klassik).
In 2018 Oslo Circles started its own concert series, named 1685 at the baroque church Akershus slottskirke in the heart of Oslo. Oslo Circles receives the support of Arts Council Norway, Fund for Performing Artists, Music Norway and Oslo City Council.
Musicians: Astrid Kirschner: baroque violin Maria Ines Zanovello: baroque violin Mime Brinkmann: baroque cello, viola da gamba Karl Nyhlin: theorbo, archlute Mariangiola Martello: harpsichord, positive organ

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Composer(s)

Claudio Monteverdi

Claudio Monteverdi was an Italian composer and conductor, whose work marked the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque. Moreover, he composed the earliest operas that are still regularly performed today.
Monteverdi worked as maestro di capella at the court of the duke of Mantua and at the San Marco in Venice. He was a famous musician during his lifetime, but his compositions also provoked opposition. The conservative theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi criticized the technical flaws in some of Monteverdis madrigals. The composer defended himself by making a distinction between two styles of composition, the prima prattica, in which the harmony is dominant, and the seconda prattica , in which the music is subordinate to the text. Monteverdi championed the seconda prattica, and eventually broke with traditional Renaissance polyphony and began to employ the basso continuo and recitative to do better justice to the text.
Monteverdi wrote amongst others eight books of madrigals, two collections of liturgical music and various operas. The opera L'incoronazione di Poppea is considered a culminating point of Monteverdi's work. It contains tragic, romantic, and comic scenes and warmer melodies than previously heard.

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Girolamo Frescobaldi

Girolamo Frescobaldi was an Italian composer and organist of the Renaissance and Early Baroque. In 1608 he was named organist of the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, after he visitied the Southern Netherlands in 1607-1608, in particular Brussels and Antwerp. From 1628 to 1933, he worked for the court of Ferdinand II of Tuscany, after which he resided back in Rome. His most popular work is his Fiori Musicali (1635), which is a collection of largely liturgical organ compositions to perform during mass. Johann Sebastian Bach owned a self-transcribed copy of this collection. Furthermore, Frescobaldi composed ricercars, canzones, toccatas (both for organ and harpsichord), four-part fantasies, madrigals, motets, and two masses for two four-voiced choirs and B.C. Frescobaldi's influence on keyboard music has been substantial....

His most popular work is his Fiori Musicali (1635), which is a collection of largely liturgical organ compositions to perform during mass. Johann Sebastian Bach owned a self-transcribed copy of this collection. Furthermore, Frescobaldi composed ricercars, canzones, toccatas (both for organ and harpsichord), four-part fantasies, madrigals, motets, and two masses for two four-voiced choirs and B.C.

Frescobaldi's influence on keyboard music has been substantial. This was realised by his many publications (which were under his published under his own supervision) as well as the many young musicians he trained. The most important of which of composer Johann Jakob Froberger, who eventually became the organist at the court of the Emperor in Vienna.

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