Quarterly Critic’s Choice
The best and most interesting new releases of the previous three months are awarded a place on the Quarterly Critic’s Choice. Evaluation criteria are artistic quality, repertoire value, presentation, and sound quality. From 2014 onward, the Long Lists are stored directly with each Quarterly Critic’s Choice.
NEW: Long List 2/2024, published on 5th April 2024
Traditional Ethnic Music
Prima Materia – Al-Rahem Al-Aoual
Sanstierce, Ars Choralis Coeln, Nouruz Ensemble. Heaven & Earth HE 29 (direct sales)
From the primordial matter of existence, the womb of the Mother, Mater, Mary in the Bible and the Koran, PRIMA MATERIA – this cosmos becomes music here. The cover of the CD shows the vision of the circle of life that Hildegard von Bingen herself created. Her thousand-year-old melodies flow into it as well as melismas and rhythms of Arabic-Islamic music. Certainly it is a matter of faith, of the great intercultural encounter into which one is spun: in the spirit of Gregorianism, early German mysticism and a lyricist from Bethlehem. An incredible collaborative work based on ideas by Maria Jonas and Bassem Hawar. For the jury: Jan Reichow