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  Farewell Beirut O Scarlet Tramp

  I am a singer-songwriter, a writer and a visual artist who has traveled far, expressively, emotionally, spiritually and geographically. I've drifted between Beirut, London, Lagos, Paris, LA, New York, and am now based in Montreal. My musical career started in Lebanon, when at the age of eleven, I recorded my very first original song "A toi maman" a romantic French ballad. It is still played yearly on the airwaves in Lebanon on Mother's Day. I compose daily, by way of intuition. It is the foundation of my music. My latest musical project, 'Farewell Beirut, O Scarlet Tramp' is an album that blends experimental pop, indie rock, electronic, free-form jazz, nature sounds and African and Middle-Eastern beats. John Cage once emphasized the integration of chance into music. I wish to detach myself from a propagandist notion that if one composes he necessarily wants music. Completion is not in neatly tying things up in a little packaged story, or telling "the truth". Music is. Music is... so complex. It has little to do with recording. It's a construction in one's head, of all your senses at the same time and everything you've ever experienced, leaving one with something to explore in the moment rather than just something to listen to. Instead of merely fusing world music and western music, I wish to deconstruct the underpinnings of music. I compose my experiences, meshing all the sounds that inspire me into a unique one that brings forth the disparate soul that lies within, while elucidating the without: the mysterious source-energy that is at the core of the divinity in music. Nature plays an important part in my compositions. There is something much deeper in sounds of nature than mere frugality. I try to bring the real world into music, not have it separated, machine-made. When all these different musical elements are gathered, then there are no rules. It is one ensemble of musical sounds, in which many ideas and forms have been woven together, creating a unique yet universal, transcendental and healing musical journey. To my mind the most beautiful and powerful musical realization, is one which tone and mood equally unite the spiritual to the cerebral. One that is recognized instinctively - proof perhaps of the universality of communication through music. This connection is huge, essential, and we are all part of this immensity, yet this immensity is also internal. Music, I believe expresses this best.

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  Händel: Apollo e Dafne/Der Alchimist

  Apollo e Dafne is an early work of Handel's, completed at the latest by 1710 when he was 25 years old in Hanover, whence Handel departed in 1710 after Agrippina had made such an impact in Venice. He thence decamped to London in the autumn of 1710, perhaps as a propagandist for the Hannoverian succession, and may even have had political duties to attend to in secret, while carrying on a spectacularly successful musical charm-offensive in favour of George and Germany. If this is the case, then we could see the dance suite of music from The Alchymist (HWV43) as advanced publicity, carefully planned to prepare Handel's arrival. Whatever: both works here are the works of a youthful and exuberant outpouring of genius. They both were conceived in theatrical Catholic Italy, only to achieve their final form in the Protestant North. In this transformation process they seem to have lost none of their vigour and warmth, and today they charm us still as they must have charmed when new, like a whiff from distant lemon groves through the London fog and the rain.Jed Wentz and his consort Musica ad Rhenum are stalwarts of the extensive catalogue of historically informed recordings on Brilliant Classics. They draw on the rich performance and scholarly tradition of early music in The Netherlands, and their recordings of Bach, Handel, Couperin, Rameau and more have, since the group's foundation in 1992, won critical praise.Other information:- Recorded 2006, a highlight from the extensive discography of Musica ad Rhenum, conducted by Jed Wentz, maintaining their high reputation in the field of historically informed performance practice.- Handel wrote the Cantata as a young man learning the craft in Italy, where he lived for several years. It bears ample evidence of the Italian style: sensuous cantabile melodies, a great dramatic impact and an abundant instrumental brilliance in the ensemble.- Contains notes on the music as well as artist biographies.- Contains a libretto for Apollo e Dafne.

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  • Price: 10.29 EUR excl. shipping

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