CD "CANTATA PER FLAUTO" "Old" and "New" Music for Recorder & Ensemble

Tabea Debus, Recorder & Direction - Hongxia Cui & Katrin Ebert & Kerstin Fahr, Baroque violins -

Johanna Brückner, Baroque viola - Lea Rahel Bader, Baroque cello & Viola da gamba - Niklas

Sprenger, Double bass - Johannes Lang, H'chord & Organ - Kohei Ota, Theorbo & Baroque guitar

Cantata per Flauto - Tabea Debus & Ensemble

Works by Van Eyck, Jarzebski, Purcell, Sarro, Telemann, Hasse, Tsoupaki and Töpp

"Be it known that all musical instruments, in comparison to the human voice, are inferior to it. For this reason, we should endeavour to learn from it and to imitate it." This statement by Silvestro Ganassi from his treatise La Fontegara (1535) summarises the common approach to instrumental music-making from the 16th until the late 18th century. Ganassi and many other well-regarded musicians, composers and theorists discussed and reinforced the importance of imitating the human voice when playing music on any instrument. As Nikolaus Harnoncourt points out in his collection of essays, Baroque Music Today: Music As Speech: "Music prior to 1800 speaks, while subsequent music paints". It is therefore essential to be aware of the degree of language, rhetoric, syntax and grammar to be found in any composition of that period – be it with a text or without one. Still, it is up to the interpreter to decide whether the interpretation should primarily be led by speech and all its implied parameters or whether to allow the instrument's typical qualities to supplant the relationship with the text if necessary.
The demand to sing with one's instrument raises a vast number of controversial questions: What defines a vocal sound? How does one apply its qualities and trademarks to an instrument? Should every composition from the 16th until 18th century evolve into a “song without words”? How does one ensure individuality and uniqueness? And finally, why should one match the human voice in playing? Of course, the answers to and elaborations on these issues remain highly individual and subjective. On the one hand every instrument, be it string, wind or keyboard, has its own and unique touch and way to respond. On the other the definition of the quality of "good singing" that should be chosen as a role model is debatable.
The same applies to the justification of the endeavour to imitate the human voice with one's instrument. Why should we match the human voice? Simply to be historically informed, "correct"? One response to this question is that the aim of any performance is to engage the audience. As the technical demands of playing an instrument sometimes obstruct the achievement of this aim, it can be a crucial advice to try and sing with the instrument. The music should speak to the listener, should be touching, natural in its execution and convincing in its reception. After all, it is generally believed that music is the language that everyone understands… Although singers actually employ text in their performances, these texts are frequently written in a language that is foreign to a majority of the audience. However, playing music on an instrument can be described in similar terms, only that here the language is universal and "purely musical". In it listening and understanding are, ideally, closely linked. Only if this is the motivation behind instrumental music-making, can "musical execution" as defined by Johann Joachim Quantz in On Playing the Flute (1752) be successful: "Musical execution may be compared with the delivery of an orator. The orator and the musicians have, at bottom, the same aim in regard to both the preparation and the final execution of their productions, namely to make them - selves masters of the hearts of their listeners, to arouse or still their passions, and to trans- port them now to this sentiment, now to that. Thus it is advantageous to both, if each has some knowledge of the duties of the other."
(extract of the booklet text)


Video - Tabea Debus - Young Artists' Series, St John's Smith Square, London (UK)

Free Audio Samples ... of this CD album!

Tabea Debus plays her recorder live in the studio... BBC Radio3

»[...] The first track (the opening of Hasse’s Cantata per Flauto – a recent discovery, found in the collection of the Viceroy of Naples) sets the mood perfectly, and makes it absolutely clear why you will love this CD. Tabea Debus’s spirited, virtuosic and musically compelling playing is immediately obvious, as is her evident sense of humour, demonstrated in this case by an extraordinary sense of articulation and phrasing and a lovely little cadenza. [...]«
Andrew Benson-Wilson, Early Music Reviews (online, 07 Apr 2016)

CD Tip!
»Wonderful, the recorder of Tabea Debus! [...] Dorothee Oberlinger: "A new star in the firmament of recorders"!«
Radio hr2 kultur, Werner Laibusch (Broadcast 13 May 2016)

Review in "Die Tonkunst - Schalltrichter"
Summary: A very good CD --- Recommendation!
Die Tonkunst, Magazine for Classical Music and Musicology (July 2016)

CD Review & Recommendation!
ouverture - Das Klassik-Blog. (online, 09 Feb 2018)

Nominated! Annual Awards - The German Record Critics' Award 2016




CD programme / Tracklist:

CANTATA PER FLAUTO

Johann Adolph Hasse (1699–1783)
Cantata per Flauto in B Major for Alto Recorder and b.c.

Calliope Tsoupaki (born 1963)
Charavgi for Renaissance Alto Recorder solo (1994)

Jacob van Eyck (ca. 1590–1657)
Four Variations on Come again, sweet love doth now invite

Domenico Natale Sarro (1679–1744)
Concerto in d minore per Flauto

Adam Jarzebski (1590–1649)
Diligam Te Domine

Adam Jarzebski
Venite Exultemus

Thorsten Töpp (born 1965)
a due (2005)

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767)
Concerto in C Major for Alto Recorder, Strings and b.c.

Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
An Evening Hymn



Tags: Keywords Cantata per Flauto Tabea Debus Blockflöte Ensemble CD GTIN EAN 4250702800606 TXA15060 Label TYXart LC28001

» Detailed CD booklet includes further info (bios, photos, etc.)
» Total playing time: 73min 01sec | Booklet Text: DE, EN, FR, JP
» Recording: Historischer Reitstadl Neumarkt/Opf., BR KLASSIK
» Format: 1 Audio-CD | Series "Classics" | RD int'l from 05/0216
» Order No.: TXA15060 | GTIN (EAN): 4250702800606
» CD available commercially or directly via TYXart

Another CD with Tabea Debus:
XXIV Fantasie per il Flauto
tr!jo Sonatas - mis en tr!jo

Further Info - Artist & Concert Dates etc.:
tabeadebus.com

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