Meyerbeer was a precocious composer and this album traces some of his very earliest works. Der Fischer und das Milchmädchen was his first stage work, a charming rural vignette that contains all the essential features of a ballet-divertissement couched in writing that enchantingly evokes the 18thcentury. Collaborating with his teacher, the Abbé Georg Vogler, Meyerbeer composed DerAdmiralin1811. The following year saw Wirt und Gast with the vivid Oriental exoticism of its Janissary music, while Romildae Constanza, his first Italian opera, shows his complete assimilation of Rossinian models.

REVIEWS:

Convincing performances of some delightful, largely unknown, scores.

I have had cause to praise the players of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice on this website before...On this occasion their skilled sensitivity to the demands of the music is again well to the fore and they give us completely idiomatic accounts that are characterised, as appropriate, by delicacy or finely controlled energy. Several passages, especially in the earliest works, offer considerable opportunities for solo woodwind players and, whether from the flautist, oboist or clarinettist, those are invariably finely delivered. To employ a well-worn but nonetheless very useful cliché, all 34 musicians perform as real chamber players who are constantly listening intently to each other – as well as taking their musical lead from their conductor. Dario Salvi is, of course, something of a specialist explorer of the lesser-known byways of music composed in the second and third quarters of the 19th century and, by skilful control of orchestral colour, orchestral balance and dynamics he creates performances that could hardly, I think, be more idiomatic.

-- MusicWeb International

Meyerbeer completed L’Africaine on the day he died and after he had changed its title to Vasco da Gama. A performing version was prepared for the premiere under its original title after the composer’s death but the new critical edition of the score recorded here reflects Meyerbeer’s original intentions. This Oper Frankfurt production features tenor Michael Spyres in the principal role, conducted by Antonello Manacorda.

A New Yorker Notable Recording of 2022!

French grand-opéra specialist Marc Minkowski has at last recorded Robert le Diable, a jewel of the genre. A triumph at its premiere in November 1831, it captivated contemporaries, and its influence stretched as far as Verdi and Wagner. An imposing international cast brings this repertory cornerstone to life: John Osborn portrays a Robert at once valiant and tender, Amina Edris reveals her full resources in the perilous role of Alice, while idiomatic performances by Nicolas Courjal, Erin Morley and Nico Darmanin complete a line-up offering the most vivid contrasts of tessitura. Against the backdrop of a medieval legend, this fantastical work depicts a confrontation between Good and Evil, pitting against each other a group of protagonists torn between desire and duty. A foundational score of musical Romanticism – performed more than 750 times in the nineteenth century at the Paris Opéra alone – is now gradually emerging from oblivion.

REVIEWS:

In these days of cash-strapped opera houses and risk-averse labels, recordings of the grander grand operas are rarities. Flawless ones are even rarer, making this breathtaking and ground-breaking new Palazzetto Bru Zane recording of Meyerbeer’s Robert le Diable a cause for celebration. In Marc Minkowski’s experienced hands, Meyerbeer’s gothic saga fairly flies off the page, every bar fizzing with energy and with set pieces that burst over our heads like fireworks. Add an outstandingly talented cast, headed by John Osborn as Robert and Erin Morley as Isabelle, and you have a set with award-winner written all over it.

-- Limelight

Following the success of 10 Famous Cathedral Organs, this release Includes more Famous Cathedral organs with splendid sound. The Cathedrals are Westminster, Winchester, Salisbury, Hereford, Wells, Liverpool Anglican, St. Giles Edinburgh, Coventry and also King's College Chapel. Westminster Abbey, York Minster.

Meyerbeer, long considered one of the greatest of operatic composers, is being rediscovered. His first music drama was Jephtas Gelübde, based on the biblical story of Jephta and his rash vow of sacrifice. The musical language is varied in expression, with an exceptionally advanced use of leitmotif and a subtle depiction of psychological process, all revealing a powerful command of material. Marches and dances of radically different moods, allied to choruses of folk-like simplicity and grandiose power, are part of a mature score in which intense monologues and gripping ensembles embody music of lyricism, drama and rapture.