Ratas del viejo Mundo presents OSSESSO, a selection of absolutely touching madrigals about love and affliction that represent the kaleidoscope of feelings and emotions of their composers, be it in the late Middle Ages or in the Renaissance, interspersed with some instrumental pieces. OSSESSO is available on cd. Find it in your local record store or buy directly from the label by clicking here. To stream OSSESSO via different platforms, please follow this link.
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´One of the most exciting formations of the moment.´ - Volker Sellmann/BR Klassik
´Right from the first notes you know that this is a group that will remain in your ears for a long time. So beautiful.´ - (aph)/De Standaard
´OSSESSO is incredible. Je craque.´ - Prof. Dr. Denis Grenier, Québec-ville
´The beauty on this CD is offered per linear meter and you must be made out of steel to remain unmoved with this age-old music.´ - Dani Heyvaert/Rootstime
´Curious name but not less curious and original is the concept t.hat sustains the content of OSSESSO.´ - La Quinta de Mahler
´A very refined and subtle cd: OSSESSO is a splendid program which is interpreted by Ratas del viejo Mundo with vigorous intensity and superb passion.´ - Francis Lippa, Bordeaux
´The singers in the madrigals have excellent technique and intonation and perform the music as written while the instrumentalists add supporting harmonies and additional ornamentations.´ - Charles Brewer/American Record Guide
´Ratas del viejo Mundo is an ensemble with strong personality and of high artistic caliber and will be - for some - a remarkable and pleasant surprise. The rats show off an extraordinary ability to rework the scores thoroughly and musically.´ - Massimo Rolando Zegna/Amadeus magazine
´Your ears are bathed in song. It’s impressive, resonant, perhaps overly rich, as if the singers all sat in a large cistern and you poked your head down to have all the polyphonic sounds float up. It provides for one aspect of the unique atmosphere of what is a decidedly atmospheric recording.´ - Jens F. Laurson/Classics Today
´I love the generous acoustic and the strong quality of the recording, [...]. There is some wonderfully expressive, as well as energetic and agile, singing here, and some fine music making all round.´ - Gary Higginson/www.musicweb-international.com
´Wonderful voices from the Middle Ages.´ - JFL & Crescendo magazine
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You’re entwined in a passionate embrace with your lover when you’re attacked from behind, violently maimed, and killed on the spot. Your assailant is your lawful wedded husband, whose status and powerful connections allow him to run wild and know there will be no consequences.
† Antonia – July 1499
† Maria – October 1590
Tromboncino and Gesualdo exemplify the extremes of which obsessiveness is capable, in their music as in their lives; in this sense, they are precursors to Phil Spector, Sid Vicious, and Bertrand Cantat.
Jealousy, tenderness, loneliness and longing, desire, unattainability, sensuality, frustration, love, lust and loss in all their configurations come together in OSSESSO. The old masters allow us no escape from the painfully vivid portrayals of their experiences. In Giunto alla tomba the bereaved lover, drained of all emotion, presses his face, pale, blank, and cold as marble, against the marble tomb in which his beloved rots. The opening bars are similarly virtually devoid of any melodic, rhythmic or harmonic movement. Time stands still. The universe ceases to exist. The music rises up and beyond the conventions
of its time. Madrigals – even when not penned by a composer-cum-murderer – are pure. . . WITCHCRAFT.
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Ratas del viejo Mundo was able to put OSSESSO onto cd with the much appreciated support from:
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´One of the most exciting formations of the moment.´ - Volker Sellmann/BR Klassik
´Right from the first notes you know that this is a group that will remain in your ears for a long time. So beautiful.´ - (aph)/De Standaard
´OSSESSO is incredible. Je craque.´ - Prof. Dr. Denis Grenier, Québec-ville
´The beauty on this CD is offered per linear meter and you must be made out of steel to remain unmoved with this age-old music.´ - Dani Heyvaert/Rootstime
´Curious name but not less curious and original is the concept t.hat sustains the content of OSSESSO.´ - La Quinta de Mahler
´A very refined and subtle cd: OSSESSO is a splendid program which is interpreted by Ratas del viejo Mundo with vigorous intensity and superb passion.´ - Francis Lippa, Bordeaux
´The singers in the madrigals have excellent technique and intonation and perform the music as written while the instrumentalists add supporting harmonies and additional ornamentations.´ - Charles Brewer/American Record Guide
´Ratas del viejo Mundo is an ensemble with strong personality and of high artistic caliber and will be - for some - a remarkable and pleasant surprise. The rats show off an extraordinary ability to rework the scores thoroughly and musically.´ - Massimo Rolando Zegna/Amadeus magazine
´Your ears are bathed in song. It’s impressive, resonant, perhaps overly rich, as if the singers all sat in a large cistern and you poked your head down to have all the polyphonic sounds float up. It provides for one aspect of the unique atmosphere of what is a decidedly atmospheric recording.´ - Jens F. Laurson/Classics Today
´I love the generous acoustic and the strong quality of the recording, [...]. There is some wonderfully expressive, as well as energetic and agile, singing here, and some fine music making all round.´ - Gary Higginson/www.musicweb-international.com
´Wonderful voices from the Middle Ages.´ - JFL & Crescendo magazine
-
You’re entwined in a passionate embrace with your lover when you’re attacked from behind, violently maimed, and killed on the spot. Your assailant is your lawful wedded husband, whose status and powerful connections allow him to run wild and know there will be no consequences.
† Antonia – July 1499
† Maria – October 1590
Tromboncino and Gesualdo exemplify the extremes of which obsessiveness is capable, in their music as in their lives; in this sense, they are precursors to Phil Spector, Sid Vicious, and Bertrand Cantat.
Jealousy, tenderness, loneliness and longing, desire, unattainability, sensuality, frustration, love, lust and loss in all their configurations come together in OSSESSO. The old masters allow us no escape from the painfully vivid portrayals of their experiences. In Giunto alla tomba the bereaved lover, drained of all emotion, presses his face, pale, blank, and cold as marble, against the marble tomb in which his beloved rots. The opening bars are similarly virtually devoid of any melodic, rhythmic or harmonic movement. Time stands still. The universe ceases to exist. The music rises up and beyond the conventions
of its time. Madrigals – even when not penned by a composer-cum-murderer – are pure. . . WITCHCRAFT.
-
Ratas del viejo Mundo was able to put OSSESSO onto cd with the much appreciated support from: