Pierre Gaultier de Marseille: Symphonies divisees par suites
Ambronay Editions
CD · 1 disc
$20.99Nov 28, 2025
Cohaere Ensemble brings back to life the instrumental works of an unfairly forgotten composer. The music of Pierre Gaultier de Marseille has accompanied the ensemble since it's earliest days. The precise, luminous performance of the Symphonies divisees par suites de tons, in the 1707 edition, gives this rare work a fresh and modern feel.
Emmanuel Bardon and his fellow musicians are tireless explorers, reviving the wonders of the poetic, literary and musical history of one of the oldest cities in the world: Aleppo. An enchanting journey at the crossroads of traditional repertoires and Canticum Novum’s cosmopolitan identity. Canticum Novum is an ensemble of early and world music created by Emmanuel Bardon in 1996. Established in Saint-Etienne, Canticum Novum has a passion for the interpretation and the transmission of the most beautiful repertoires of early music, especially those that link the music of western Europe (Spain, France, Italy etc.) with that of the Mediterranean basin. The latter being enriched with the influence of both the Christian world and the Orient (which has been molded by a Jewish and Moorish heredity).
The three singers-explorers of the ensemble Les Itinérantes invite us on an exhilarating journey through the heart of winter. The program of this release includes popular and traditional songs from the whole world, whose a cappella interpretation warms the soul and the senses. The story of Les Itinérantes begins in January 2017, Paris, France. Three women who met through their musical comedy training sing together for the first time for what was supposed to be "One or two shows just like that" and very quickly switched to "Ok, we have to continue together!" Three musicians with varied influences: from old music (Pauline) to jazz and song (Manon) through world music (Elodie)… who have decided not to choose and to mix everything together. There you have it, Les Itinérantes are born: an a cappella trio whose repertoire currently covers 11 musical styles, 9 centuries and 19 languages.
The musicians of El Gran Teatro del Mundo venture into the very heart of this German Baroque repertoire, deeply inspired by the French style typical of the reign of Louis XIV. This program offers the opportunity to discover, through the prism of orchestral scores reduced for chamber ensemble, the richness and passion of Lullists such as Muffat, Telemann or Fischer. Based in Basel (CH), El Gran Teatro del Mundo has performed all over Europe, amongst others at Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Festtage Alter Musik Basel, Musikinstrumentenmuseum Berlin, Musica Antica Urbino, Festival d'Ambronay, Centro Botìn Santander or Riga Early Music Festival. The ensemble also was selected as one of the "Promising Young Ensembles" of the International Young Artist's Presentation (IYAP) at the Laus Poliphoniae Festival in Antwerp and won the prize for the best interpretation of Spanish music at the Antón García Abril Competition in Baza in 2017. In 2018 El Gran Teatro del Mundo was a beneficiary of the eeemerging project (Emerging European Ensembles) supporting young early music ensembles within the framework of the Creative Europe programme. In 2019 the ensemble won the "Cambridge Early Music Prize" at the Early Music Young Artists Competition in York (UK).
Inspiration, energy and freedom compose the alluring menu of La Vaghezza's very first opus. The five instrumentalists of the young Italian ensemble, recent winners of the EEEMERGING+ scheme, sculpt one by one these magnificent pieces of 17th century Italy, like jewels to be (re)discovered. La Vaghezza is a trio sonata ensemble playing music from the 17th and early 18th Centuries, with a special interest in the unpredictability, extravagance, originality and freedom found in 17th Century Italian music. Their musical interpretations are historically informed, but always guided foremost by their common sensibility as an ensemble and their search for ‘La Vaghezza’, an aesthetic concept which describes a beauty impossible to understand or grasp: like smoke, something calling to be touched yet remaining intangible.
Florence, second half of the 14th century: in the heart of a city in full humanist and cultural effervescence, composers such as Francesco degli Organi (or Landini) and Paolo Da Firenze bring the music of their time to its peak. A unique abundance that the Sollazzo ensemble invites us to discover with this new album. Sollazzo Ensemble was founded in Basel in 2014 and brings together musicians passionately attached to the medieval and Renaissance repertories, with a particular interest in the transition between the two periods. The group is directed by fiddle player Anna Danilevskaia and benefits from the varied musical backgrounds of its members: while some of them come from families already specializing in early music, others have found their calling by way of modern classical music, folk music, theatre or even musicals.
Destouches: ISSE, pastorale heroique / Camboulas, Ensemlbe Les Surprises
Ambronay Editions
CD · 2 discs
$29.99Nov 08, 2019
Under the direction of Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas, and in the company of the cream of young French singers (Judith Van Wanroij, Mathias Vidal, Chantal Santon, Thomas Dollie etc), the ensemble Les Surprises offers us the world premiere recording of Isse, a heroic pastoral by Andre Cardinal Destouches, the composer who was also a musketeer. Isse borrows its subject from Book VI of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Its poet, Antoine Houdar de La Motte, took pains to point out the fact in the epigraph that appeared at the head of each edition of the libretto until 1756: “Just as Apollo in the guise of a shepherd deceived Isse, daughter of Macareus.” Ensemble Les Surprises is a flexibly sized Baroque ensemble, founded in 2010 by the viol player Juliette Guignard and the organist and harpsichordist Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas. Les Surprises has made five recordings for the Ambronay Editions label, all of which have received high praise from the national and international press.
Virtuoso sonatas, tarantellas and chaconnes from seventeenth-century Italy are performed here with contagious energy by the young ensemble PRISMA, a laureate of the eeemerging programme. The four musicians accompany this colorful programme of variations on the theme of the seasons with their own improvisations. The Gottinger Tageblatt recently wrote of PRISMA: “this truly vivid art of interpretation- together with technical perfection, beauty of sound and balance- brings the impression that every phrase is invented in the very moment.” In May 2015 PRISMA won the Ensemble First Prize at the International Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber Competition in Austria. Following this, they were invited to give concerts at the Biber Festival in Vienna, the Reihe Historischer Musik der Handel-Festspiele Gottingen, and on air with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk. In 2016, they were admitted to the eeemerging programme with festival residencies in Riga and Ambronay. On stage, PRISMA seeks to recount the music as if telling a story: the musicians speak with their instruments, sometimes supporting each other, sometimes clashing, bringing to life the expressive power of the repertory.
With this release, Ambronay Editions invites listeners to delve into the roots of tango. Bandon+-on virtuoso William Sabatier is joined by baritone Diego Flores and guitarist Ciro Perez for an intimate and poetic journey in the footsteps of the great Carlos Gardel. The arrangements heard here (written by Sabatier) set texts full of melancholy and passion and capture the spirit and emotion of the national music of Argentina perfectly.
Today, French Baroque composer and keyboard virtuoso Louis Marchand is perhaps best known as the performer who failed to take up J.S. Bach's challenge for a musical 'duel.' Unfortunately, this colorful legend has overshadowed Marchand's ample gifts as a composer of organ and harpsichord music. Writing in the 'old fashioned' style of d'Anglebert, he employs a profusion of ornaments which enrich the sustaining power of the sound. In contrast, the music of Rameau immediately imposes a new and revolutionary conception of music. Everything here breathes harmony. The discourse is always deliberately clear, favoring transparency over the bombastic effects of a more sensual harpsichord sound. The Donzelague harpsichord that is featured on this disc provides the link between these two seemingly antithetical composers. Donzelague built his instruments in Lyon and both Marchand and Rameau lived in Lyon at different points in their lives. Christophe Rousset explores the connections and contrasts between these giants of the period.
