Christmas cantatas and instrumental works by Johann Philipp Käfer
Many works by Johann Philipp Käfer (1672 - 1728) have been lost, making it difficult to take a comprehensive look at his oeuvre. Nevertheless, this recording offer a brief overview of his surviving music. The CD was recorded in the small North German town of Grasberg, with the continuo part played on the historical church organ built by Arp Schnitger in 1694.
Malwine Nicolaus, soprano Julie Comparini, alto Mika Ruben Stähle, tenor Arthur Engel, bass Lisa Bork, organ Ensemble La Protezione della Musica Musical direction: Jeroen Finke
Arcantus, arc 24056 Available as a physical CD here or here or in digital form on Spotify or all the usual streaming services.
Pone spes in planctu amaro
Solo Motets by Isabella Leonarda
Photo: Felix Patzelt, Cover: Dagmar Puzberg
During her 68 years at the Collegio di Sant'Orsola, Isabella Leonarda composed more than two hundred published works in twenty published collections. She is considered one of the most productive female composers of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Her approximately 100 solo motets combine technical virtuosity with a highly personal expression of religious fervor. The texts are frequently non-liturgical, rich in imagery and assumed to be written by Leonarda herself. They offer a fascinating insight into both Leonarda’s own deep and personified beliefs and the larger theological context of a 17th-century nunnery.
In spite of their musical quality, most of Leonarda’s works have not be re-performed in modern times, and only a handful have been recorded or published in modern editions. Contralto Julie Comparini and an ensemble of early music specialists present solo motets and violin sonatas by this virtuoso Baroque composer.
Julie Comparini, contralto Wiebke Corßen and Julia Krikkay, violin Jenny Westman, viola da gamba Susanne Peuker, theorbo Tobias Gravenhorst, harpsichord Klaus Westermann, organ
To order a CD directly from Julie Comparini, please send an e-mail to julie (at) juliecomparini (dot) com with your billing and shipping address and the desired number of CDs. You will receive an invoice that can be paid via PayPal or SEPA bank transfer and your CDs will be sent in the mail. The CDs cost 18 Euro per CD plus postage (postage-free for orders shipped within Germany).
Watershed presents a new song cycle (2020) composed by Ailís Ní Ríain on poems by Jessica Brown from her book And Say (Revival Press, 2019). The song cycle is performed by contralto Julie Comparini and pianist Yonit Kosovske, who commissioned the work with funding from the Arts Council of Ireland Music Commissions Award. The album also features poetry readings interwoven with nature soundscapes along and near Lough Derg in counties Clare and Tipperary.
Julie Comparini, voice Yonit Kosovske, piano Ailis ni Riain, composition Jessica Brown, texts and readings
Now and Then Media, NATM 21.01 €18 including shipping / €13,50 as digital download Available as CD or download from Bandcamp.
Eros und Gewalt
Music by Gesualdo, Rossi and Vivier
Under the title "Eros und Gewalt" (Eros and Violence), the Schola Heidelberg juxtaposes works by Gesualdo di Venosa and Michelangelo Rossi with those by Claude Vivier.
SCHOLA HEIDELBERG Directed by Walter Nußbaum Michael Rotschopf, recitation
Simon Mayr's highly operatic oratorio tells the story of the biblical patriarch Jacob and his wives Leah and Rachel, who are forced to flee from Jacob's father-in-law, Laban. Leah, the peacemaker, tries to stay optimistic while Rachel's loyalties waver between her husband and her father. Jacob, caught in a tactically and emotionally unwinnable situation, must prepare himself for the approaching conflict with his persecutor.
Jacob a Labano fugiens was Mayr's first oratorio. It was composed for the musicians of the Ospedale di Mendicanti in Venice and first performed there in 1791. Franz Hauk is Mayr's leading interpreter and "discoverer" and has performed many of his works for the first time in modern years.
Julie Comparini, Jacob Andrea Lauren Brown, Lea Gunhild Lang-Alsvik, Rahel Siri Karoline Thornhill, Laban Katharina Ruckgaber, Shepherd
Simon-Mayr-Chor & Ensemble e.V. Franz Hauk, Direction NAXOS 8.573237
Better-known (if at all) as a conductor than as a composer, René Leibowitz was a student of Maurice Ravel and Anton Webern and went on to write an impressive collection of works in a wide range of styles and instrumentations.
Julie Comparini is featured as soloist in "Explanation of Metaphors" for Sprechgesang, harp, two pianos and percussion. See the "Audio" section for a sample!
Soloists Schola Heidelberg ensemble aisthesis Walter Nußbaum, Direction
Komm, Jesu, komm BWV 229 Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn BWV Anh. 159 Jesu, meine Freude BWV 227 Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden BWV 230 Fürchte dich nicht BWV 228 Der Geist hilft unsrer Schwachheit auf BWV 226 Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied BWV 225
Rheinische Kantorei Musical direction: Hermann Max
Orpheus, oder die wunderbare Beständigkeit der Liebe
Oper von G.P. Telemann
"The ancient legend of Orpheus, son of Apollo and the Muse Calliope, as preserved in Ovid's Metamorphoses, can justly be termed the mother of all opera plots..." — Telemann's brilliant and colorful adaptation of the Orpheus myth is a rare jewel from Hamburg's 18th-century Gänsemarkt theater.
Dorothee Mields, Orasia Markus Volpert, Orpheus Ulrike Hofbauer, Eurydice Christian Zenker, Eurimedes Barbara Kraus, Ismene Reinhard Mayr, Pluto Marelieze Gerber, Cephisa Julie Comparini, Ascalax
L'Orfeo Barockorchester Directed by Michi Gaigg
Sony Music/deutsche harmonia mundi.
Some Strange Felicity
Ensemble Sospiri Ardenti
The music of two generations of English composers comes vividly to life in a program created around Shakespearean theater music. The phantasmagorical world of The Tempest, inhabited with unearthly beings, is presented with the florid and sweeping music written for the English Restoration staging, approximately one hundred years after Shakespeare's time. In the second half, the very human comedy of love and folly, Twelfth Night, is presented with original Elizabethan music, as Shakespeare himself might have heard it.
Compositions from: Henry Purcell, Robert Johnson, Matthew Locke and John Banister (The Tempest); and from Thomas Morley, John Dowland and William Cornyshe (Twelfth Night)
Ensemble Sospiri Ardenti
Julie Comparini, mezzo-soprano Ellen Delahanty, soprano and recorder Jurgen Debruyn, lute and archlute Geert Van Gele, recorder and harpsichord
Der Geist hilft unsrer Schwachheit auf BWV 226 Komm, Jesu, komm BWV 229 Jesu, meine Freude BWV 227 Fürchte dich nicht BWV 228 Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden BWV 230 Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn BWV Anh. 159 Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied BWV 225
Berliner Vocalconsort Marcus Creed, Leitung
N.B. I was a last-minute replacement for a colleague, so my name didn't make it into the booklet. I did sing everything. -- J.C.
Clouds Without Water is a soundtrack that takes us to the edge of the modern abyss, a sonic painting of the beginnings of the 21st century. It warns us to look, but more importantly, listen, to the world’s fading consciousness instead of ignoring it.
Called by the New York Times as "Masters of the cinematic instrumental", ZOAR has assembled a stunning array of vocalists, including Brendan Perry (DEAD CAN DANCE), Matt Johnson (THE THE), Jennifer Charles (ElYSIAN FIELDS) and newcomer Julie Comparini, for their dark ambient compositions.
