• Ricercar Consort CD Buxtehude : Salvator Mundi

    Buxtehude : Salvator Mundi

    Ricercar Consort CD Buxtehude : Salvator Mundi

    Buxtehude : Salvator Mundi

    RICERCAR CONSORT, Philippe Pierlot
    www.mirare.fr

    Quatre ans après le superbe « Membra Jesu nostri », le Ricercar Consort se tourne à nouveau vers Buxtehude. Les cantates interprétées dans cet album traitent pour la plupart de la Passion et de la résurrection. Avec les sonorités réconfortantes bien que dramatiques de ces cantates, Buxtehude parvient à détourner le regard de la souffrance humaine pour le guider vers l’aide divine afin de donner aux hommes un avant-goût de l’harmonie et de la perfection célestes.

  • Ricercar Consort – Beethoven: Irish Songs

    Beethoven: Irish Songs

    Ricercar Consort – Beethoven: Irish Songs

    Beethoven: Irish Songs

    RICERCAR CONSORT, Philippe Pierlot
    Maria Keohane, soprano
    www.mirare.fr

    «Sweet Erin, lov’d Erin, the pride of my song; still brave be the sons, and still fair be the daughters«, sings Irish-Swedish soprano Maria Keohane in one of the Irish Songs set to music by Beethoven and largely arranged by Philippe Pierlot, who also conducts his Ricercar ensemble, while also singing a few of the melodies himself.

    Not a lot of people know that Beethoven was an excellent arranger of popular songs. This production, which is very different from the rest of his work, includes one hundred and seventy-nine arrangements of Scottish, Irish and Welsh songs made at the request of a Scottish publisher who wanted to bring together the most beautiful British melodies. Subsequently, Beethoven expanded this work with melodies from all over the continent. Originally conceived with piano accompaniment with the additions from violin and cello, they are presented here with instruments closer to the folk traditions in which they originated.

    Beethoven obviously went much further than merely arranging harmonies, and wrote preludes and postludes of his own, which matched the spirit of the melody at hand. In this refreshing album, Beethoven/Pierlot arrangements are interspersed with traditional melodies found in other collections. This diversity of approach to this folk music is judiciously reproduced by Maria Keohane and the musicians who surround her, giving this ancestral music a tone of poignant nostalgia. © François Hudry/Qobuz

  • An Englishman's Ballad

    An Englishman’s Ballad

    An Englishman's Ballad

    An Englishman's Ballad

    RICERCAR CONSORT
    Jeffrey Thompson, Tenor
    Daniel Zapico. Theorbo & guitar
    Philippe Pierlot, Bass viol
    www.labelflora.net

    Jeffrey Thompson’s first CD for Flora is all about a life’s journey through time, emotions, and memories.

    The tenor gives us a fantastic spectrum of his vocal and dramatic capacities, painting with extreme variety the depths of human feelings or on the contrary lightness of pure joy and folly… as we can find only in English baroque poetry, on music by John Blow, Jeremiah Clarke, Nicholas Lanier and Henry Purcell (such as the famous “Here, let my Life”).

    Accompanied by his beloved continuo players Daniel Zapico on the baroque guitar and theorbo, and Philippe Pierlot on the viola da gamba, a must have for your dark winter eve’s.

    An Englishman’s Ballad

    «El CD pretende ser un viaje vital a través del tiempo, las emociones y los recuerdos. Thompson, de bellísima voz, demuestra poseer un dominio absoluto de esta música, en esencia no es demasiado compleja, pero que necesita de lucidez y chispa para sacarle toda la sustancia que entraña. El acompañamiento de Pierlot y Zapico es sencillamente fastuoso.»

    Scherzo
    Enrique Velasco | Abril 2020

  • Ricercar Consort – Membra Jesu Nostri

    Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri

    Ricercar Consort – Membra Jesu Nostri

    Buxtehude: Membra Jesu Nostri

    RICERCAR CONSORT, Philippe Pierlot
    www.mirare.fr

    En 1680, Dietrich Buxtehude envoie à son ami Gustav Düben la partition des Membra Jesu nostri. Dans cette œuvre d’un équilibre parfait, il s’adresse directement aux sens et nous fait plonger dans les souffrances du Christ : on sent les coups de marteau, le cœur qui s’arrête de battre…. Par le génie de sa musique, Buxtehude parvient à nous émouvoir, à nous éclairer et nous instruire sur le sens profond du texte.