2008 will be the centenary of the births of Olivier Messiaen and Daniel-Lesur. To mark the occasion, Catherine Simonpietri and the vocal ensemble of soloists Sequenza 9.3, whose achievements were awarded a Diapason d'or in 2006, have decided to honour the composers with this beautiful recording.

Classical Music

Classical Music

An East/West, classical/folk journey, with striking new interpretations of music of very ancient origins, exploring the history of a region beaten by the 'wind of wars' but blooming by the interactions of diverse civilizations. Civilizations that never stopped meeting, flirting, influencing, and creating a cultural magma that is inseparable, indefinable even, unique... and of course, exquisite.

After their three recordings dedicated to Dvor�k's Piano Trios No. 3 and No. 4 (the 'Dumky'), as well as his First and Second Piano Quartets, the Piano Quintets and the Bagatelles, Omri Epstein, Mathieu van Bellen and Ori Epstein conclude their complete cycle of the Czech composer's chamber music with piano with his first two piano trios: the bond of sympathy between the artists becomes evident as they communicate both their passion for this repertoire and their pleasure in making music together. The Trio in B flat major - the first that has survived - was composed in the spring of 1875, during a period when Dvor�k was conceiving and consolidating a more conventional sense of musical form and style. The works of this remarkably prolific year show a distinct crystallisation of Dvor�k's mature melodic style. When the composer began work on his Trio in G minor, in January 1876, he was exhausted after the completion of his opera Vanda, and overcome with grief for the death of his daughter Josefa. He would certainly have known how, back in 1855, his elder colleague Smetana had turned to the genre of the piano trio in similar circumstances, to express his sorrow at the death of his own daughter. This recording completes this four-part edition of Dvor�k's piano trios, quartets and quintets.

Pierre Henry, a supreme innovator in the field of sound aesthetics, opened the gates to many other musical universes through the applications of his technological research. Fascinated by Beethoven from an early age, he composed a "Tenth Symphony": "It's not the one Beethoven made sketches for," he said. "Nor is it a synthesis of the nine. It is essentially a combinatorial work. It's also a tribute to the man who hoped to exceed the limits of the orchestra. Perhaps a way of painting my portrait (our portrait) through this music and the influence it has had on mine. It is a dreamlike, logical and respectful trajectory through what these symphonies contain and suggest. The work deliberately uses as "raw material" only notes, groups or motifs from the nine symphonies." There are three electroacoustic versions, but it is the unpublished symphonic version that is presented here. It was premiered in November 2019 at the Cite de la Musique in the Philharmonie de Paris, by three orchestras, two choirs, and three conductors: the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre du Conservatoire de Paris, the Choeur de Radio France and Le Jeune Choer de Paris under the direction of Pascal Rophe, Bruno Mantovani and Marzena Diakun.

Classical Music

Classical Music

While Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was above all else a dazzlingly accomplished harpsichordist, his considerable output for flute can easily be explained by the milieu in which he worked for nearly thirty years. The Berlin court of Frederick II was in fact governed by two flautists: the king himself, and his teacher and accredited and exclusive composer, the famous Johann Joachim Quantz. His five flute concertos were derived from a group of seven concertos for harpsichord written between 1747 and 1755. It is very likely that Emanuel Bach himself made all these transcriptions. The versions for flute nearly always date from the same year as the corresponding harpsichord concerto, which suggests virtually simultaneous conceptions. The three concertos selected for this recording have survived in versions for both flute and cello, now in the libraries of the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and the Royal College of Music in London.

Following on from the success of the Red and Yellow series (a total of twenty-eight reissues), which have restored to the limelight the treasures of the label’s Baroque music catalogues, here are fourteen new titles offering a chance to renew acquaintance with further gems of the Baroque as well as a number of rarities. This third series also expands to embrace the Classical repertory (Mozart, Haydn etc.) and other cultures, notably those of the East, in recordings that form an integral part of Alpha’s identity and history. The fourteen reissues are performed by the leading musicians in the relevant repertory; most of these discs received one or more press distinctions on their first release. They are accompanied by full booklets, with articles in three languages (English, French, German) and richly illustrated chronologies. A wide range of photographers have provided the cover illustrations for the series, this time with the colour blue as the unifying thread.

With Resound Beethoven, the Orchester Wiener Akademie brings the music of the great master back into the venues where they received their premiere performances. The focus of this recording is theatre music. Herbert Fottinger has taken the role of narrator in this production of Egmont. John Malkovich serves as narrator in the English version. Producer Stephan Reh captures the acoustic qualities of these venues with fullness and transparency.

The winner of the very first Queen Elisabeth Competition for cellists in Brussels in 2017, Victor Julien-Laferri�re also received the Victoire de la Musique Classique in 2018 in the category 'Soloist of the Year'. His chamber recordings with the pianist Adam Laloum have won numerous awards, including a Diapason d'Or of the Year in 2016. Victor Julien-Laferri�re now joins Alpha Classics for several recordings. The French cellist, who studied successively with Roland Pidoux, Heinrich Schiff and Clemens Hagen, has decided to record two peaks of his instrument's repertory, the sonatas of Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich, alongside the pianist Jonas Vitaud, with whom he enjoys a close rapport. They have given this programme in concert together on many occasions. A rare piece by Russian composer Edison Denisov completes the album: the Variations on a Theme by Schubert, composed in 1986.

Classical Music

The Orchester Wiener Akademie and it's conductor Martin Haselb�ck continue the Resound Beethoven series, performed on period instruments and scrupulously respecting the orchestral layouts of 200 years ago. Volume 8, the last volume of the series, is devoted to two emblematic works, both of them dedicated jointly to Prince Franz Joseph Maximilian Lobkowitz and Count Andreas Kirillovich Razumovsky: Symphonies nos. 5 and 6. Each of these symphonies has a name attached to it. While the Fifth Symphony is sometimes called the 'Fate' Symphony for more or less determined reasons, Beethoven himself named the Sixth 'Pastoral', thus pursuing the venerable tradition of the musical pastorale while conferring a new dimension on it. The Orchester Wiener Akademie recorded these two works in the Landhaus Saal of the Nieder�sterreich Palais, Beethoven's favorite concert venue. Between 1819 and 1827, all his nine symphonies were performed there at the 'Concerts spirituels' founded by Franz Gebauer, and it was in this same palace that the Austrian Revolution of 1848 began.

The life of Stradella, murdered on a Genoese piazza at the age of forty-two on the orders of a jealous rival in love, has achieved mythical status and inspired several novels and operas featuring Stradella the adventurer, the rebel and above all Stradella the Don Juan, whose amorous escapades, from abducting a novice from a convent in Florence to a flight across Italy with the high-born fiancee of a senator, were never a hindrance to his flourishing musical career. It is easy to imagine that Stradella’s hectic life provided the inspiration for the captivating female figures who abound in his output, exalted by technically redoubtable vocal writing, as exuberant and virtuosic as it can sometimes be sober and ethereal, and supported by remarkably skilled recitatives, a genuine verbal theatre that offers the singer infinite scope for expression. From the demonic Salome to Ariadne, the model wife turned into a Fury by despair; from Pelagia, the repentant sinner who ends her days living in a cave disguised as a man, to Susanna, the very image of innocence and purity, this programme presents a series of portraits of women whom Chantal Santon embodies in their turn with all her artistry, her intimate knowledge of this repertory and her sense of theatre.