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MEDIEVAL.ORG

[ROSA E ORTICHA]... presents an excellent addition to the discography.

...it's safe to characterize them as the current leaders in the field

See the review on: NOVEMBER

20/20

Diese CD [ROSA E ORTICHA] zählt schon jetzt zu den wichtigsten Veröffentlichungen der mittelalterlichen Musik dieses Jahres.
    Das Ensemble Syntagma bedient sich der mittelalterlichen Musik von Bardolino da Padova und seinen Zeitgenossen, um ein in sich geschlossenes Werk zu schaffen, das von der ersten Sekunde an fasziniert.
    Das Ensemble Syntagma unterstreicht einmal mehr, dass es zu den herausragenden Ensembles dieser Musikgattung zählt.

la suite                                         Ingo Andruschkewitsch

Recording Of The Year 2008

1. A CD as historically fascinating as it is extraordinarily beautiful and moving. It explores - with undogmatic sensitivity - the music of Gautier d'Epinal and his contemporaries. The results are seductively persuasive.
     The music is inventive and often inexpected in its rejection of symmetry and repetition. while the dominant tone of Gaultier's songs if one of almost meditative melancholy, there is a good deal of variety on this well planned CD...
   ... It is a long time since I enjoyed a CD of early medieval secular music quite so much.

2.   "STYLEMS"
       The sympathetic understanding which underlies these performances blends scholarship and imagination, fidelity and freedom, in thoroughly attractive fashion
   Instruments and voices are deployed with ungimmicky variety and with unshowy awareness of effect.
...it is a delight to see such sympathetic performers as Ensemble Syntagma willing to explore – with such fruitful results – some of the less familiar repertoire of this important phase in Italian music...

                                                    Glyn Pursglove

Your link to music scenes worldwide

By Tobias FISCHER

Rock n Roll started in 1300: A medieval album that feels relevant to the time we live in.

..."Remembrance" is not built like a mere collection of loose ends, but really presents a tension arch embedded in a story-like aural architecture...
Read the review

March 2007
..Years passed and his ensemble Syntagma, operating from France and involving a fertile list of passionate musicians, built a reputation for itself as a group who not only cared for their audiences but also surprised the critics...
Continue to read the i n t e r v i e w with the Artistic Director

BEST Medieval & Renaissance Recordings of the Year 2008 -

Turning to earlier secular music, this listing closes with two recordings by Ensemble Syntagma... In each of this releases, little-known repertory is brought together with a very sophisticated feeling for articulation and sonority...

Stylems: the result is quite engaging and really benefits from repeated hearing.

Remembrance: ...the ensemble and this program make for wonderful advocacy, creating a disc of interesting melodies, rhythms & sonorities. the result has a haunting, memorable quality.

by Stephen EDDINS - V.2008

...countertenor Akira Tachikawa and mezzo-soprano Annemieke Cantor; together they create a pure and lovely blend. The instruments are deployed with unusual sensitivity to textures and colors. The hushed, subdued character of the CD makes it an excellent choice for quiet listening as well as for fully focused attention. The sound is intimate and warm. Both the rarity of the repertoire and the extraordinarily fine performances make this a CD that should be of strong interest to fans of medieval music.

Juillet - août 2008 - - Sophie ROUGHOL
...très beau travail de restitution sonore des sources, donnant à caque pièce une atmosphère précise, par le prélude initial, par l'association de timbres instrumentaux et vocaux de toute beauté... l'adéquation de l'habillage sonore avec le texte, sans souci de mode médiévale ou d'anecdote spectaculaire.

Octobre 2004 - - François CAMPER
...le programme ménage une progression jusqu'au chef-d'oeuvre de Gautier d'Epinal - " Touz esforciez " - pour tenir l'intérêt jusqu'au terme. Surtout la mise en place coule comme une eau tres pure... la chanson de Gautier d'Épinal dájà gravées par les ensembles Lucidarium (l'Empreinte Digitale) et Millenarium (Ricercar) trouvent ici une expression beaucoup plus lumineuse...

Octobre 2002 - - Timothée PICARD
L'ensemble exécute ces chansons de façon extraordinaire, grâce à des solistes et un continuo de tout premier ordre... quel émotion sourd de ce chant frémissant, expressif dans la moindre inflexion de voix, la moindre respiration! ...l'ensemble séduit et touche dans son entier comme dans le détail de ces splendides broderies musicales ...Excellent !

by Detmar HUCHTING - April 2008

...im Lichte dieser neuen Erkenntnisse sind auch die Interpretationen des Ensemble Syntagma nicht vorrangig von jenem positiven Grundton geprägt, der so vielen Darbietungen mittelalterlicher Musik zueigen ist. Eine gewisse Gravität des Vortrags lässt den Zuhörer dieser CD gelegentlich innehalten und den verborgenen emotionalen Tiefen nachsinnen, die sich in dieser unseren heutigen Ohren doch sehr fremden Musik spiegeln.

April 2009, p. 275 - 277 STYLEMS:

So musizieren der russisch-französische Komponist Alexandre Danilevski und sein Ensemble Syntagma aus den insgesamt sechzehn Liedsätzen klare Charaktere und körperreiche Linien heraus, gehen mit Lust die virtuosen Passagen an und nutzen ihre beachtlichen instrumentalen und vokalen Kompetenzen fur immer neue, mit Bedacht ausgetuftelte Kombinationen. Dabei fällt die Wahl gezielt auf unbekannte, bislang nicht oder nur an abgelegenem Ort eingespielte Sätze.

... Ein erneuter Überraschungseffekt tritt daher ein, wenn in Bartolino da Padovas Madrigal »Qual lege move« zum einzigen Mal eine reine Vokalbesetzung gewählt wird. Gerade deshalb gehört es paradoxerweise zu den Höhepunkten der Aufnahme. Denn die vokal vorgetragenen, reich verästelten Figurationen verschmelzen so unmittelbar mit der Textdeklamation und machen die musikalische wie textliche Komplexität dieser Musik lebendig und unmittelbar erfahrbar.

"Remembrance"
This recording is artfully put together, and the musicians’ use of different scorings provides not only variety but a sense of drama and direction as might be found in a concert performance
        ...a tight sense of ensemble and the impressive negotiation of a number of delicate and intricate melodic and rhythmic twists align the performance convincingly with the poetry...

            A similarly impressive tightness of ensemble is evident in a second release by Ensemble Syntagma, Stylems.

                                                                    Lisa Colton

Gautier d'Epinal. REMEMBRANCE - May 2008
by Massimo Rolando ZEGNA

...un compact disc belissimo che spicca nel panorama della recente produzione discografica dedicata al repertorio medievale. Un cd coinvolgente e pienamente riuscito ...Resa vocale e strumentale di gran classe. Per gli amanti del repertorio, ascolto assolutamente rapinoso.

Massimo Rolando Zegna

STYLEMS: Italiaanse muziek uit het trecento

De composities van o.a. Bartolino da Padova (ca. 1365-1405), Donato da Firenze (tweede helft van de veertiende eeuw), Ghirardello da Firenze (ca. 1320/25-ca. 1362/63) en een aantal anonieme componisten hadden zich naar mijn oordeel geen betere vertolkers kunnen wensen. De opname (Chapelle St. Augustin, Bitche, Frankrijk) is - om het met een woord samen te vatten - subliem.

The works by such as Bartolino da Padova, Donato da Firenze, Ghirardello da Firenze and several anonymous composers could not in my opinion have found any better interpreters. The recording ...is - in a word - sublime.

Aart van der Wal, sept.2008

Columns

Notiziario Sound and Music - Ottobre 2004

...Grazie alla stradionaria bellezza delle musiche eseguite che rivelano une dolcezza espressiva e un fascino fuori dal tempo, e al altissimo livello dell'interpretazione, questo disco rappresente il mezzo ideale per guardare il repertorio medievale sotto un aspetto nuovo e stimolante.

David Fiala - 2008: STYLEMS:

L'ensemble trouve des accents et une fraîcheur réellement novatrices...
… le disque est un modèle d’inventivité et de poésie. . La souplesse rythmique et le charme mélodique des ballate et madrigaux du Trecento ont rarement sonné avec tant de beauté… Ce disque nous comble.

Roger TELLARD - 2008 REMEMBRANCE:
...l'unité et la cohérence du style immédiatement perceptibles, d'où naît un chant coloré et largement orné un autre trait d'altérité tenant dans la conviction des intonations... le disque élève Gautier d'Epinal à un rang qu'il n'avait jamais atteint auparavant dans le concert de la lyrique médiévale.

Russian Baroque Music: Works from 18th-century Russia
By George PRATT

This extraordinary disc lifts the veil from a brief moment of time. .... Yet it is just these unsophisticated qualities which create such winsome appeal.

Medieval Music & Arts Foundation

October 2008 - by Todd McCOMB

..The program is rather different from the typical Trecento release, and the performance is sensitive & well-conceived. .. both the program & approach are well worth hearing for a broader perspective on this era. ...This program turns to some little-recorded Italian composers of the period, and illustrates some interesting styles that offer a bit of contrast to those of Landini et al. ... The performance is both cogent and nicely expressive. There is a good variety of instrumentation, used sensitively to enhance the vocal lines, or at times in an instrumental rendition.

February 2008 - by Todd McCOMB

..the performance features a wonderful variety of sonorities ... overall this is a very enjoyable and sophisticated interpretation, drawing upon a wide range of knowledge and opinion about medieval performance..

Issue 32:5 (May/June 2009) of Fanfare Magazine - J.F.Weber
...This is another collection of rarities of late medieval music from Italy that will be indispensable to specialists and fascinating to even a casual listener.

1/03/2008 Os mehores discos de 2007
"O Templo das Heresias" apresenta as suas maiores referencias discograficas de ano de 2007:
Ensemble Syntagma "Gautier d'Epinal. Remembrance"

By Reimar EMANS

Mit viel Dezenz spielen die übrigen Instrumente auf ; hier gibt es keine Übersteigerung des Mittel, sondern eine geradezu vornehme Zurückhaltung, welche die Produktion besonders auszeichnet…So gelingen geradezu meditative Seimmungen, die dann selbst einer Rezitazion zu erstaunlicher Wirkung verhelfen.