CONCERTI PER FLAUTO

LES ARTS FLORISSANTS / RAMEAU: PLATEE - WILLIAM CHRISTIE A marsh nymph thinks she is so irresistible that Jupiter himself will take an interest in her... Brimming with exceptional dramatic and musical verve, this strangely under-recorded 'ballet bouffon' offers us Rameau's art in a nutshell: glittering orchestration, harmonies and rhythms of unprecedented modernity. William Christie and his comrades plunge with delight into what is one of it's composer's most fascinating works. William Christie and Les Arts Florissants plunge with delight into what is one of it's composer's most fascinating works. HARMONIA MUNDI USA

Johann Sebastian Bach and the Akademie f�r Alte Musik Berlin go back a long way together. This recording, made with the welcome participation of Isabelle Faust and Antoine Tamestit, follows the complete violin concertos (2019), which left a lasting impression. Ever since a memorable first recording in the late 1990s, the Berlin musicians have returned regularly to the inexhaustible source of the Brandenburgs. They have achieved a sovereign mastery of what is not a single work, but six. In their hands, they become successive episodes of a piece of musical theater in love with dance, transparent sound and freedom.

With his First Concerto, the young Brahms set his own course in the wake of Beethoven and Schumann and at the same time poured forth his personal emotions in this work of impressive dimensions. Russian soloist, Alexander Melnikov, has chosen an instrument contemporary with the premiere, a magnificent Bl�thner piano from 1859, a perfect match for the Sinfonieorchester Basel under it's British conductor Ivor Bolton. In addition to Brahms's Tragic Overture, the program also includes the much rarer Overture to �liza, an opera by Cherubini, a composer whom Brahms greatly admired.

In the words of Richard Wagner, Beethoven's Seventh is a true "apotheosis of the dance". It has enjoyed perennial popularity ever since it's premiere, unlike his sole ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus, of which only the overture has remained (more or less) familiar to us. The musicians of the Freiburger Barockorchester, under the direction of their Konzertmeister Gottfried von der Goltz, offer a brillant new version of this key work in Beethoven's corpus while reviving the complete version of one of his most unjustly forgotten masterpieces.

 

REVIEWS:

 

Goltz and his Freiburg players give [the Seventh] everything, and their exceptional period-instrument vividness and fierce dynamic contrasts are a tonic.

 

– Sunday Times (UK)

 

Nothing is left in the locker in these terrifically raw and punchy performances of a much-loved symphony and all-too-rarely heard ballet.

 

– BBC Music Magazine

For the past several years, Isabelle Faust has been exploring Johann Sebastian Bach's music for the violin. First came her recording of the solo Sonatas and Partitas, which earned widespread acclaim. It was followed by the sonatas for violin and harpsichord, violin concertos and transcriptions, and the Brandenburg Concertos. Each reading was marked by equal freshness, an unfailing sense of rediscovery, precision, and generosity. Isabelle Faust here regales us with a treasure that reveals a thrilling story. A bonus DVD, recorded at the Leipzig Thomaskirche, next to it's most famous Cantor's tomb, completes this monumental tribute.

GABRIEL FAURE Requiem (1893 version). With Messager: Messe des Pecheurs de Villerville. La Chapelle Royale, Ensemble Musique Oblique, Philippe Herreweghe. This title was released for the first time in 1988.

Avner Dorman has fast become one of the most sought-after composers of his generation. In 2018, he received the prestigious Azrieli Prize for his Violin Concerto No.2 and his opera Wahnfried was nominated for a 2018 International Opera Award. Written in 2013 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, Letters from Gettysburg, a work scored for soprano, baritone, large chorus and percussion, is the centerpiece in this all-Dorman release. It is paired with two Dorman works commissioned by Orli and Gil Shaham. After Brahms is three intermezzos pieces for solo piano that cleverly extend the harmonic language of Brahms. Nigunim draws on the musical influences of Jewish song, hailing from locations around the world - Africa, the Caucasus, the Balkans and Central Asia.

A century after his death on 25 March 1918, many harmonia mundi artists were eager to pay tribute to Claude Debussy, the magician of melody and timbre, the great 'colourist' and father of modern music. With the musicians of Les Siecles, we have the opportunity to discover on period instruments the original colors of such key works as Jeux and the Nocturnes.

Isabelle Faust and Francois-Xavier Roth explore extremely contrasting facets of Stravinsky's output for violin. From the Concerto to the Pastorale, the composer plays with codes and colors, sketching extraordinarily vivid soundscapes. Once again, the musicians of Les Siecles have succeeded in rediscovering the works' original dynamic by using period instruments - and that changes everything.

The poetics of space and the art of time, high-precision mechanism, rhythmic exhilaration; Ligeti's music defies criteria and codes. This recording provides an opportunity to assess the evolution of the musical language of one of the twentieth century's greatest composers, from the early Concert Romanesc to the later concertos for piano and violin, performed here by two fabulous virtuosi.

A dark, pessimistic work, Belshazzar casts an uncompromising gaze on the fate of empires and those who govern them. In 2013, William Christie and Les Arts Florissants recorded a noble and majestic account of this formidable oratorio. The Times proclaimed "Belshazzar is delivered with ringing zest by Allan Clayton, Rosemary Joshua and other top Brits, and an orchestra forever on the boil."

The orchestra of Le Consort, in the course of it's exploration of Vivaldi, reveals the many facets of this inexhaustible cycle. To achieve this, Theotime Langlois de Swarte has held up a subtle mirror to other works by the 'red-haired priest'. All of them perpetuate the seasons in their own way, through shared memories and impressions; in the background Lambranzi's Venetian dances complement this musical picture awash with colors.

The grandeur of simplicity Paul Hillier possesses a special rapport with the Estonian composer Arvo Part, with whom he has worked for many years, patiently exploring the different facets of his music. This boxed set assembles this major recording legacy (1996-2012) in it's entirety for the first time. It represents a significant milestone in our understanding of Part's unique musical universe, characterised by a purity and inwardness inherited from the great tradition of Gregorian chant. A pioneer of 'historically informed' performance, Philippe Herreweghe recorded a extensive selection of Bach's finest cantatas with harmonia mundi - versions now regarded as milestones in the works' discography. This boxed set provides an opportunity to rediscover that legacy in it's entirety: twenty years (1987-2007) in the service of one of the Kantor's richest and most indispensable bodies of work.

Mendelssohn's incidental music left it's mark on his contemporaries with it's virtuosity, it's subtle orchestration and it's evocative power. Here, Pablo Heras-Casado, the Freiburger Barockorchester and the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin present the music absolutely complete, flanked by Max Urlacher as a wonderfully ebullient narrator. Their historically informed interpretation of A Midsummer Night's Dream offers a delightful plunge into this world of dreams and enchantment.

In it's fascination with Italy, nurtured by all that was best in Florence, Rome and Venice, 17th-century France saw the blossoming of a new national art. Though Lully in his pomp might seem to have subdued the musical world of his time, the ensemble La Palatine has helped us to restore it in a quite different constellation - one that is far more diverse, overflowing with imaginative riches.

30 years ago, a young German countertenor recorded his first disc for harmonia mundi. Since then, Andreas Scholl has been unfailingly successful. To celebrate this outstanding artist, a box set combining six of his iconic recitals retraces the main points of his career to date. From Dowland to Handel, here is the glorious testimony of a singer at the summit of his art.

This fourth and last volume devoted to Mozart's Violin and Piano Sonatas is a virtual journey of initiation, from his light-filled Palatine Sonatas to the later, more intense and complex Viennese masterworks, with Mozart completely revitalizing the genre and opening up new aesthetic horizons.

Following on from their recording of the sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord, Isabelle Faust and Kristian Bezuidenhout are now joined by Kristin von der Goltz for an exploration of the wonderful pieces Bach composed for violin and basso continuo. They reveal the full the elegance and poetry of these rarely recorded works.

To inaugurate their collaboration with harmonia mundi, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have recorded a program as subtle as it is unexpected, with two seldom-heard masterpieces of 1913. From the bitingly ironical Shakespearian portrait of an ageing knight (Falstaff), to an existential meditation inspired by Poe (The Bells), both these 'literary' scores dramatically prolong the enchantments of a dying romanticism.

Alexander Melnikov returns to Rachmaninoff with an exploration of the poetic world of the Variations on a Theme by Chopin. He traveled to Lake Lucerne to record this album on the master's own piano at Villa Senar, Rachmaninoff's last summer home. To accompany this eminently lyrical music, he joins forces with luminous soprano Julia Lezhneva and invites us to discover some of the Russian composer's most beautiful songs from this period of intense creative ferment.

From the youthful sonic ecstasy of George Enescu's Octet to the touching late composition Lachrymae by Benjamin Britten, Ensemble Resonanz and Tabea Zimmermann invite us to rediscover two profound, world-embracing works - full of inner motion, poised between reflection, melancholy, and transcendence.

John Rutter is one of the most iconic figures of English choral music today, a symbol of it's vitality and high standards. Graham Ross brings together the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (the celebrated choral institution that the composer himself directed in the mid-1970s) and The Dmitri Ensemble to pay homage to this great gentleman of modern musical history with a wide range of his works, some of them recorded here for the very first time.

Morton Feldman's cycle, The Viola in My Life, is four individual compositions that utilize various instrumental combinations with the viola. The works is a beautiful succession of delicate sounds during which Feldman, through the interplay of sound and silence, alters and transforms time. "This work has accompanied me like a secret, an almost silent meditation on what the viola means in my life. Through it I have experienced how much this instrument connects me to listening, to patience, to inwardness. Here Morton Feldman is not composing in order to shine, but so as to make us hear the infinitesimal, the unspeakable - that is what has touched me profoundly, and I want to share it with the listeners." (Antoine Tamestit)

To celebrate their 20th anniversary in style, Les Siecles and Francois-Xavier Roth have chosen to dazzle us with the distinctive colors of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Paris. This concert, recorded in the legendary surroundings of the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, explores shimmering orchestral works by Debussy, Lalo, Dukas and Roussel.