Recordings
SOLO
ORGANIC CREATURES
Medieval & Renaissance Music
+ New Compositions and Improvisations
for portative organ, medieval and Renaissance organ reconstructions
historical organs. Guest musicians.
Consouling Sounds, Belgium, 2020
IL CEMBALO DI PARTENOPE
Music by Velente, Antico, Cavazzoni, Cabezón and more
Catalina Vicens - Anonymous harpsichord, Naples ca. 1525.
Catalina Vicens: Italian music for harpsichord on the world's oldest playable instrument (Naples 1525)
This new album of harpsichordist Catalina Vicens is a unique, multifaceted musical and poetic project. First, it features the world’s oldest playable harpsichord, a priceless treasure that dwells today in the National Music Museum of Vermillion, SD. She plays music from Naples, Italy from around 1525, the year when the instrument that she plays was actually built in Naples. Secondly, Ms Vicens conceived an imaginary tale of the life and story of that very instrument, partly based on historical facts, partly on poetic inspiration emerging from her encounter with this priceless treasure of a historical harpsichord.
The CD comes with a free audiobook download of that same story, narrated by Ms Vicens herself and accompanied with original music from the CD.
Carpe Diem Records, Germany, 2017
PARTHENIA - solo debut
Music by William Byrd, Dr. John Bull and Orlando Gibbons.
Catalina Vicens - virginals and harpsichords
Parthenia is a collection of pieces for harpsichord and virginal from of the three famous English composers Byrd, Bull and Gibbons. It was printed in 1613 in London for the occasion of the marriage of Elizabeth Stuart and Frederick V.
"...this disc is a winner in every respect. Catalina Vicens plays brilliantly."
- Johan van Veen, CD of the month review @ Music Web International
"...from the very first notes of Byrd's opening Preludium, it's clear that the young harpsichord player Catalina Vicens enjoys not only great empathy, but impressive mastery of Jacobean keyboard style.
- Stephen Midgley, 5 star review @ Amazon.uk
"...(Catalina) maintains the music’s spring and momentum through eloquently spread chords and rhythmic inflections, her timing of the tumbling flourishes that climax certain sections brings both controlled and effective releases of tension... The sound of this CD is also a treat..." - Lindsay Kemp - Gramophone magazine
Carpe Diem Records, Germany, 2013
ENSEMBLE
PYGMALION
Rameau - Benda
Apotheosis Orchestra / Korneel Bernolet
Of all the myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the story of Pygmalion has always particularly resonated with artists – with sculptors, painters, writers and composers alike. This recording presents – coupled for the first time – two dramatic musical settings of the myth by two truly unique eighteenth-century composers. The contrast could hardly be greater. Rameau's acte de ballet appealed to Parisian tastes, while Benda's Melodrama, written thirty years later, was designed for a German-speaking audience. However, together, the two settings make for a fascinating dialogue
Ramée, 2019
MUY HERMOSA ES MARÍA
Villancicos from La Real Audiencia de Quito
Música Temprana / Adrián R. van der Spoel
Quito, the capital of Ecuador, had a vibrant musical life around 1700. Nevertheless, until recently there was no single note that could testify to this. In the town of Ibarra, north of Quito, a manuscript was discovered a few years ago that had remained unopened for centuries. This collection of 44 compositions was composed between 1680 and 1730 and contains so-called villancicos; pearls of Latin American polyphonic vocal music. The exuberant literary activities in Quito around 1700 make it very plausible that the texts - with many references to daily life - were written and performed by nuns. A theory that is also reinforced by the fact that the names of women are often mentioned on the original scores.
Cobra Records, 2018
CODEX SPECIÁLNÍK - Polyphony in Prague around 1500
Cappella Mariana / Vojtěch Semerád
H. Blažíková, V. Semerád, T. Lajtkep, T. Král, J. Nosek
R. Šeda, O. Sokol, J. Zívalík, C. Vicens
Codex Speciálník, a manuscript containing polyphonic music which originated in Prague in the course of the last two decades of the 15th century, is considered one of the most important sources of music from Bohemia in the late Middle Ages. The original name of the collection signifies a “special” type of singing, characteristic of the Czech milieu and different from the common liturgical collections. The contents of the codex mostly relate to the mass liturgy of the Utraquist Church and comprise parts of the ordinary, motets, and religious songs, but also non-liturgical sacred music, as well as repertoire intended for instrumental interpretation. Containing some 200 polyphonic pieces, the collection contains music by important composers of the time which was known and performed in Latin Europe (e.g. Bedyngham, Frye, Weerbeke, Josquin, Isaac, and Obrecht), but also works by authors who were mostly active in Central Europe (e.g. Tourout, Flemmik, and Finck) as well as anonymous works (in some cases on Czech lyrics)...
Etcetera, 2016
MACHAUT - Mon Chant Vous Envoy
Virelais, rondeax and ballades by Guillaume de Machaut
Ensemble Mauillon - Biffi - Hamon
Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-1377) was the foremost poet and composer of fourteenth-century France. He was an extraordinary creative artist, who by the middle decades of the fourteenth century had already composed a substantial body of literary and musical works, to which he added until his death in 1377...
"How is it that more than seven hundred years later these sequences of notes can have such an impact? This is a mystery to me. Although the original lyrics often seem overwrought, the music is extraordinarily fresh. The melodies and harmonies are far from today's classical music conventions, yet they speak even more directly and profoundly".
-Robert Sadin
Eloquentia, France, 2012
MUSIC & WOMEN: Idolized & Demonized
Instrumental music from 16th and early 17th century Italy and England.
Works by Tromboncino, Cara, Dalza, van Eyck, Hume…
Ensemble La Traditora - Demo recording
With music from Italy, Ensemble La Traditora idolizes the woman with words of beauty and longing tears in solemn dances and the refined frottole of Tromboncino and Cara. With music from the Elizabethan England the listener is taken into the world of mythology where nymphs, satyrs, witches and mistresses dance to charming melodies. To finish, the woman is brought to back to earth in her different states of vanity.
Indie, Switzerland, 2011.
COLLABORATIONS
BALLARE ET DANZARE
Dance Music of the 15th Century Italy
Ensemble Mediva, director Ann Allen
Mediva has recorded their third CD - a special commission by the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society of 15th century Italian dance music by Domenico de Piacenza and his followers.
Mediva has been a fun loving, imaginative and successful medieval group for over ten years, performing a range of music from the 12th - 15th century. Over the years many fantastic musicians have played with the group and Mediva currently consists of a flexible range of musicians and singers who studied and played together during their time at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and have since gone on to become leading specialists in their field.
Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society, UK, 2011
JAN VAN EYCK - Ambassadeur
Musique à la cour de Bourgogne autour de 1429
La Chambre d'Aliénor, dir. Cécile Orsini
Cet enregistrement propose d'illustrer le contexte musical dans lequel a évolué le peintre flamand Jan van Eyck.
En ce temps-là, le duché de Bourgogne, sous Philippe le Bon (Dijon, 1396-Bruges,1467), père de Charles le Téméraire (Dijon, 1433- Nancy,1477), est bien plus puissant que le royaume de France, affaibli par la guerre de cent ans. Son souverain, Charles VII, est discrédité par un soupçon d'illégitimité, et c'estJeanne d'Arc qui le conduira à Reims pour y être sacré, en 1429.
Indie, France, 2010.