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Milena Cord-to-Krax

Category: Music

  • Incomplete list of instrumentally performed Renaissance music recordings

    I’m very interested in instrumentally performed Renaissance music, and I very much enjoy listening to it. But it’s not that easy to find recordings of that musical era without singers. (This is not really true, as there is a vast amount of solo lute/organ/harpsichord recordings. Which is why they are being omitted, sorry!) So, here…

  • Training like a Renaissance musician would do it Part I — The Beginning

    In February/March 2021 I took an online course on Solmization, modes and psalmody, led by Isaac Alonso de Molina and organized by Escuela de Polifonía Opera Omnia. It was great! I participated because I had learned before what solmization is but not to actually do it. Studying at the conservatory I was really busy playing…

  • The Imperfect Pearl — Photos

  • The Imperfect Pearl — a new project

    I’m very happy to present a new project: The Imperfect Pearl. Next to Isidro Albarreal (baroque violin), Inés Salinas (viola da gamba) and Gabriele Levi, (harpsichord) I founded a new Early Music Ensemble focussed on baroque music of the 18th and 17th century. Have a listen: [divider] [two_columns_one] [/two_columns_one] [two_columns_one_last] [/two_columns_one_last] [divider] What is it…

  • Historically Informed Creativity — subcategory to HIP

    I‘d like to introduce a subcategory to Historically Informed Perfomance Practice (HIP): Historically Informed Creativity (HIC). The creative aspects for musicians from the early music epochs (Middle ages, Renaissance, Baroque) included improvising, diminuting, ornamenting, arranging and composing. Studying the mentioned parts of music making from the original treatises, and thus obtaining knowledge on style, harmony–…

  • Todd Boyd on playing someone else’s music

    As in the early music scene we like to point out the similarities between early music and jazz in terms of conception of the music (improvisations, variations, creativity, openness of the repertory…) would/should this statement have to refer to us as well? ‘If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s tune, he has a responsibility to…

  • My 5 favourite Early Music CD’s (2016)

    Quite a difficult decision when you can only choose 5 CD’s! Here they go, in alphabetical order: Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet: A Concorde of Sweete Sound (L’Oiseau-Lyre, 1993) Karl-Ernst Schröder & Crawford Young: Amours Amours Amours (Harmonia Mundi, 2002) More Hispano — Vicente Parrilla: Glosas (Carpe Diem, 2011) Musica Antiqua Köln — Reinhard Goebel: French…

  • A photo from 21-12-15 in Berlin

    Last 21-12-15 I played a concert in Berlin with Sofia Chekalina (baroque cello) and César Queruz (tiorba) at KiezKulturWerkstadt. It was the first time for me to travel to Berlin and I had spoken with César via eMail, but we only got to know each other 3 days before the concert. His teacher Björn Collel…

  • C.P.E. Bach on ornamentation

    “It is not likely that anybody could question the necessity of ornaments. They are found everywhere in music, and are not only useful, but indispensable. They connect the notes; they give them life. They emphasise them, and besides giving accent and meaning they render them grateful; they illustrate the sentiments, be they sad or merry,…

  • Bruce Haynes on HIP

    ‘The harder we work to imitate the past, the more personal and contemporary the results will be.’ — Bruce Haynes in The End of Early Music