The Chevalier de Saint-George is in many respects an exceptional figure. Born in Guadeloupe in the eighteenth century to an aristocrat and an enslaved woman, he received in Paris the education of a court gentleman: violinist, fencer, Freemason, participant in the Revolution, and conductor, he was also a composer. It is naturally to the violin that he dedicated his finest works, among which the concertos, marked by a virtuosity that is both unbridled and graceful, stand out in particular. Romuald Grimbert-Barre and the Orchestre national de Cannes pay tribute to this extraordinary life by pairing the Op. 5 and Op. 8 concertos with Thierry Pecou's Concerto Hommage a Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George. Through it's many biographical references, the work offers multiple poetic points of entry into the life of this singular and fascinating figure, who remains far too little known today.
Schumann is one of the great lifelong companions for musicians, including, Dasol Kim. The composer manages, with remarkable subtlety, to capture the fleeting yet striking moments and emotions of existence. His Carnaval, the Forest Scenes, and his final composition, the Geistervariationen ("Ghost Variations"), dedicated to Clara and first published in 1939, contain numerous references to popular imagination, literature, Schumann's life, and his reflections - all of which Dasol Kim explores here.
Little is known about Johann Sebastian Bach's sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. Are they early works or products of his late period? Do they form a cycle, or are they a collection of independent pieces? Long-time musical partners Atsushi Sakai and Christophe Rousset set out to record these enigmatic works, in which the gamba, as so often in Bach, becomes at once the voice of lamentation and an instrument of dialogue with the divine.
After Bess's departure, what becomes of Porgy? Having fallen in love with Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, the brilliant pianist and arranger Vyacheslav Gryaznov decided to answer this question by taking up the opera's themes. With Rhapsody in Black, a concerto for piano and orchestra, he picks up the story where the opera leaves off: Bess in New York, Porgy following in her footsteps. Neither a pastiche nor a simple arrangement, Rhapsody in Black reclaims Gershwin's legacy by blending electrifying improvisations, big-band sonorities, and poetic ballads. With this New York fresco, complemented by Rhapsody in Blue, Gryaznov creates an extraordinarily vibrant diptych, superbly brought to life by the Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien and Wayne Marshall, a leading specialist and outstanding interpreter of Gershwin.
Traetta's Ifigenia in Tauride draws us into the tragic heart of the House of Atreus. Orestes is consumed by guilt over the murder of his mother Clytemnestra, while Iphigenia bears the lasting scars of her near-sacrifice, planned by her own father Agamemnon. They are two tormented souls, profoundly alone, who find each other in a moment of overwhelming recognition. Traetta's music captures this tragic tension perfectly. Standing at the crossroads of Neapolitan bel canto and Gluck's dramatic reform, his vocal writing is never an empty display. Every line, every ornament, conveys raw, sincere emotion. Christophe Rousset leads the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and a brilliant cast of soloists, with Rocio Perez delivering a deeply moving portrayal of Iphigenia, in this masterpiece by Traetta, recorded here for the first time.
The myth of Orlando Furioso, conceived by Ludovico Ariosto in the 16th century, is one of the most fertile for dramatic and musical imagination. Between chivalrous heroism, romantic torment and psychological turmoil, it explores the limits of passion and the fractures of the human soul, offering Baroque composers an ideal terrain for expressing the tension between reason and madness, order and chaos. This program bears witness to this, traversing the many faces of Orlando through excerpts from operas by Vivaldi, Handel, Steffani, Fux and Porpora, where recitatives, arias and instrumental movements mirror his inner world.
After their first recording, Nuits parisiennes, Manon Galy and Jorge Gonzalez Buajasan open the door to the inner worlds of Romanticism. Surrounding Mendelssohn's rare Sonata in F major MWV Q 26 (his only mature violin sonata), Brahms's Second, and Grieg's Third are a few poetic and intimate gems, such as Sibelius's Berceuse and Fibich's Poeme. Between "melancholy waltz and languorous vertigo," violin and piano become the exalted yet nostalgic voice of the composers' most personal confidences.
With Vieni, o Notte, Francesca Aspromonte signs her first recording for Aparte with an all-Scarlatti program. Together with Arsenale Sonoro and Boris Begelman, she explores three cantatas (sometimes described as serenate) in which the composer makes the night the stage for his characters' thwarted loves. He gives them arias and recitatives that are painful, contemplative, or searing, complemented by two sonate a quattro with madrigalian lines, whose quartet performance by Arsenale Sonoro highlights the bold harmonic shifts, the shadows, and the light. The album closes with All'hor che stanco il sole, a world-premiere recording - a musical meditation on love and loss. Here, Aspromonte unfolds a mastery of line and text that reveals the full sensuality of this music.
This complete recording of the a cappella choral works of Francis Poulenc marks the celebration of the 20th anniversary of Ensemble Aedes and brings to a close a cycle initiated in 2009. Francis Poulenc's a cappella choral compositions form a unique ensemble, revealing a fragile interiority suffused with profound humanity. For him there was no sense of division between the secular and the sacred in his choral works: he appears to have considered them as a single entity, stemming from the same inspiration. From the Chanson a boire (1922) to the Laudes de saint Antoine de Padoue (1957), all of his compositions show the same fervor, clarity, and depth of feeling.
Founded in 2016, the Sypniewski Trio brings together Magdalena, Anna and Caroline Sypniewski. For "Origines", their first album, the three sisters return both to the birth of the string trio and to the origins of their own ensemble. The programme includes Purcell's fantasias for viols - intimate pieces enriched by the musicians' historically informed performance practice - alongside trios by Sibelius and Beethoven (the third of the Op. 9 set, the most ardent and innovative of his works in the genre), as well as Kaija Saariaho's intense Cloud Trio. These varied musical landscapes offer the Sypniewski sisters the opportunity to play with virtuosity on the paradox of the trio format, where individuality and cohesion serve a single musical narrative, which they shape with precision and poetry in a spirit of total commitment.
In 1892, Brahms returned to the piano to deliver his final works for the instrument: four collections of music written in a sparse, almost ascetic style, before the Vier Gesange that would close his oeuvre. "Playing a late Brahms intermezzo is like walking in the snow: every trace remains." Fabrizio Chiovetta approaches these songs of farewell with his characteristic elegance and directness.
Though Amanda Maier left her mark on the musical life of her time, the centuries that followed largely forgot her name. With this album, the Trio Ernest opens a door onto her musical world, highly personal, alongside works by Grieg, the Schumanns, and Reinecke. At it's heart lies Maier's beautiful Trio in E-flat major, at the crossroads of German Romanticism and Swedish folk tradition, as well as the Swedish Airs and Dances, whose color and charm are brought to life by Eleonore Billy's nyckelharpa.
For the second volume of their complete symphonic works by Mendelssohn, Les Ambassadeurs - La Grande Ecurie bring together two works marked by the composer's trip to the British Isles in 1829 and his visit to Fingal's Cave. The musicians have chosen here the first versions of these pieces - less famous than the later versions - which are being recorded here for the first time on period instruments.
Christophe Rousset continues and concludes his exploration of Bach's splendid keyboard corpus in this new recording, which combines depth, virtuosity and interiority. The Toccatas are among Bach's earliest works composed between 1705 and 1712. They bear witness to the influence of northern masters such as Buxtehude, and are above all the site of Bach's stylistic blossoming, giving free rein to his fantasy, his freedom and his architectural and expressive genius.
Cage and Dowland: the two Johns, four hundred years apart, share a common taste for sober expression, concise forms and intimate realization - and for the pleasure that comes from words as such. Each cultivates this desire in his own way. Cage, like a tightrope walker, approaches the essence of musical thought with humor, lightness, and depth, and Dowland aims for the expression of feelings in their purest form. Cultivating as always a fertile anachronism, the Theleme ensemble brings together the complete works for two voices and lute by Dowland, several compositions by Cage, and world-renowned artist Sting offers a reworking of his hit song, "Shape of My Heart", which in this new arrangement becomes a kind of 21st-century lute song, coming full circle on an album where Renaissance and present meet, mingle, and merge to transcend the boundaries of aesthetics and genres.
The most famous tenor celebrates not only his 60th birthday, but also 40 years of an exceptionally rich and varied, and remarkably generous career. A career spent off the beaten track, constantly regenerated, and showing an insatiable curiosity, a temperament, and an extraordinary vocal timbre. Roberto Alagna captivates audiences everywhere. Here he presents a program that is very much in his own image: showing a contagious passion, an insatiable appetite for the exploration of different repertoires and styles, ranging from opera - French, Italian and Neapolitan, German, Polish and Russian - to Italian and French songs, and crossover music with some surprises up his sleeve.
Cyrille Dubois is unstoppable: after two albums dedicated to Liszt and the Boulanger sisters, both acclaimed by the critics, and a flamboyant complete set of Faure songs, the tenor is back to his preferred repertoire, the French art-song. He reunites with his accomplice, pianist Tristan Raes, to bring the Bordeaux composer Louis Beydts (1895-1953) out of oblivion, as most of his pieces are recorded here for the first time. From these miniatures, Cyrille Dubois draws the sap of the musician's art. A pure product of French hedonism, it is refined and elegant, with a generous vocality but also daring, for Beydts forbids himself nothing. Echoes of jazz and light music, of Hahn or Faure, polymodality and polytonality, his melodies traverse everything between fantasy, humor and contemplation with supreme freedom. By transporting us into this singular universe, Cyrille Dubois establishes himself as an invaluable performer of the repertoire and a pioneer of French music, with an uncommon mastery of the combination of word and music.
Christophe Rousset offers his version of Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge, finally tackling the German master's most mysterious work, a phenomenal and unfinished construction whose instrumentation has given rise to musicological debate in recent centuries. Behind the prowess of this cathedral-like work, the performer reveals all the virtuosity that it demands from the keyboardist who brings it to life. This is a meditative journey to the heart of the most ethereal compositional treatise ever written.
Andreas Scholl, the Czech Ensemble Baroque and Roman Valek, introduce us to the splendid works of Frantisek Tuma - a little-known Czech composer who was a prominent musical figure in the 18th century. The musicians here perform several of his emblematic motets and cantatas composed for Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, embracing Tuma's splendid invention and intensity of expression.
With Thesee, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques continue their tour of Lully's operas, in which they have become specialists. Lully's third musical tragedy, and one of the least recorded, Thesee recounts the hero's youth, long before his battle with the Minotaur or his intrigues with Ariadne and Phedre. The story takes the listener on a journey through a series of changing settings - from the underworld to the island of paradise, from Versailles to Athens - supported by the incredible vocal eloquence of Lully's music, underpinned by a constant and hitherto unrivalled tension. At the center of the drama, Karine Deshayes sings a flamboyant Medee, a pugnacious and tragic figure, guiding the listener through the most enraged opera in Lully's catalogue. Matthias Vidal and Deborah Cachet portray a most poignant Thesee/Egle, giving the duets all their dramatic power. Medee's emblematic aria ("Depit mortel, transport jaloux") alone captures the movement and wizardry that run through the entire work - one of the most captivating achievements of the Sun King's surintendant.
Martin Wahlberg and Orkester Nord take you on a journey to discovery Duni, the father of opera-comique through two of his emblematic works: Les deux chasseurs et la laitiere, and Le peintre amoureux de son modele, recorded here for the first time. Combining musical innovation and comic genius, these two "comedies melees d'ariettes" were at the origin of the metamorphosis of the light genre, which led directly to Mozart and the singspiel. Duni displayed a wealth of theatricality and an art of 'quiproquo' (misunderstanding), as in Alberti's aria "Chere Laurette" (Le peintre amoureux de son modele) or the superb final quartet "Ainsi le sort" from Les Deux chasseurs et la laitiere. Martin Wahlberg and Orkester Nord, who had already highlighted Mozart's debt to Gretry, continue their fascinating lyrical epic through the treasures of French opera, fully embracing it's revolutionary spirit and dramatic force.
The ensemble Aedes began it's musical journey with Poulenc, under the impetus of conductor Mathieu Romano. Here, at the head of Les Siecles, Romano returns to the unclassifiable composer to record two of his major works. In the pious contemplation of the Litanies, here performed in the manuscript version, and the orchestral luxuriance of the Stabat Mater, spirituality is expressed through music that is lively, sensitive and even, at times, sensuous. Sculpting out every phrase and note, always at the service of the text, the ensemble and Mathieu Romano confirm their affinity with the composer's language. As an interlude Mathieu Romano has included a secular piece, O doulx regard, o parler gratieux, by the Renaissance composer Clement Janequin. The boundaries between earthly love and mystical love are thus abolished in favor of pure emotion.
In 1958 Poulenc composed La voix humaine, a one-act opera for soprano and orchestra, based on the monodrama of the same name, written for the Comedie-Francaise by his friend Jean Cocteau. In this staging of the end of an amorous relationship, we hear only the woman's side of a final telephone conversation with the man who has abandoned her. The orchestra in this innovative work is used not only to unify the composition, but also to reveal what the voice, laid bare by a moving parle-chante style, does not say. Fiancailles pour rire and Chemins de l'amour, usually for voice and piano, but presented here in an orchestrated version by one of our finest conductors, Frederic Chaslin, completes this eloquent rendition of works of a bittersweetness that Poulenc transcends like no other.
Born in 2000, Simon Burki has won many international competitions and is currently studying at the Juilliard School, New York, with Sergei Babayan. His debut recording features works by Rachmaninov - 2023 marks the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth - and Scriabin, Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Schumann. The program confirms Simon Burki's affinities, with some of Rachmaninov's sombre Etudes-Tableaux and Preludes, together with two Etudes by Scriabin, and a selection of transcriptions and short pieces. In these (post-)Romantic miniatures, the young pianist demonstrates his outstanding virtuosity and sober elegance, as well as the exciting flamboyancy and intensity of his playing.
Well established in the field of historically informed performance, the Italian ensemble Il Pomo d'Oro has recently expanded: it now includes a choir, and this is it's first solo recording. Conducted by Giuseppe Maletto, the ensemble presents here Gesualdo's fascinating first book of Sacræ Cantiones. Less well known than his madrigals, the nineteen five-part motets that make up this work explore the theme of repentance through the Liturgy of Penance and the figure of the Virgin Mary. The painfully voluptuous chromaticism and the expressive intensity and refinement of the lines make this work one of the most singular of that period. Gesualdo's interpretation of the liturgical text is intensely dramatic and highly personal. Il Pomo d'Oro renders perfectly the mysterious beauty of this music.
Women poets, composers, dreamers, and mothers; their femininity is expressed through their artistic creations and works. From the Virgin Mary to Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, via Mother Earth or Pachamama, Diana Baroni, Ronald Martin Alonso and Rafael Guel Frias pay tribute to the outstanding female personalities of the New World, from the time of colonization to the present day. The sonorities of the flute, the Baroque guitar, the viola da gamba and the percussions blend with those of the voice to paint a powerful and poetic portrait of this ancestral heritage.
By the mid-18th century Vienna had established itself as the center of European musical life, witnessing the development of the Classical style and then Romanticism. At the same time, the guitar was rapidly evolving and, in the absence of interesting original compositions, it's repertoire saw the flourishing of a whole host of arrangements, before the mad "guitar mania" that was to take hold in the 19th century. Here, Edin Karamazov and Pavel Steidl perform new arrangements for two guitars of three emblematic works of that period. Bringing together pieces illustrating the structural mastery and playfulness of Haydn, the melodic inventiveness of Mozart and the poetic imagination of Schubert, they present a musical portrait, for twelve strings and four hands, of the Austrian capital at that time.
After Mozart's youth symphonies, the Freiburger Barockorchester returns to the composer with his concertante music. A 'portrait of the artist as a young man', his last three violin concerto were composed when he was twenty years old. Melodically inventive, structurally rich, and showing complexity in the dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra, these works represent important milestones, not only in Mozart's output, but also in the concerto genre in general. Often recorded, these concertos are presented here in a new version: in accordance with practices of the time, Kristian Bezuidenhout improvises a pianoforte part, while conducting the orchestra, over which the violin of Gottfried von der Goltz, an artist at the height of his powers, soars with great finesse.
Maxim Emelyanychev's affinity with Mozart is well known, especially when it comes to piano works. In 2018, the conductor and keyboardist treated us to a recording that not only displayed his virtuosity and musicianship, but also revealed his remarkably close understanding of the composer's music. Today, the symphonies are the focus of his first long-term project with Il Pomo d'Oro, an ensemble he has been working with as it's conductor since 2013. As he points out, this project, aiming eventually to provide a complete set of the Mozart symphonies, is unlike anything he has recorded with the ensemble hitherto on period instruments. The approach here is original: each volume will feature an early symphony by Mozart, together with one of his great mature symphonies, which will enable the listener to perceive his many facets, revealed in the course of his development. Each volume will also include a bonus work, featuring a special guest. Inaugurating the series, Maxim Emelyanychev himself provides the hors d'œuvre with Concerto o.23 K.488, played on a fortepiano, before going on to conduct Mozart's Symphonies Nos.1 and 41.
