This disc is just a peach. Jules Massenet’s ballet music brings together all the most charming musical trends of the 19th century: the new French ballet tradition, the lightness of Offenbach’s operettas, the lush tunes of Strauss’s Vienna, the big splashy orchestration of late-century “exotic” potboilers. The music keeps getting better and better as the CD goes along.
First I listened out of order and decided the opener, Bacchus, was my least favourite. Then I went in order and, mid-Bacchus, wondered what I had been complaining about. Yes, “Chasseresses et Bacchantes” has an early role for a percussion instrument so wimpily played that I’m not sure what it is, but then the most glorious Johann Strauss parody waltz breaks out and all is forgiven. Yes, the final bacchanale isn’t as crazy as Saint-Säens’ or Roussel’s, but what music is?
Hérodiade is an opera about Herod, where he’s the central character, in contrast with Richard Strauss’s Salome. The ballet music comes from a banquet where Herod entertains guests with dances by exotic slave girls from various foreign lands. It’s the shortest selection here.
Then we have big suites from Thaïs and Le Cid, each over 20 minutes, the highlights of the disc. Those who know Thaïs only for its “Meditation” will be happy to hear that the rest of the opera is also jam-packed with beautiful music. It’s varied, too, from the stern timpani roll of the opening andante to the perky Pierné-like flute and piccolo solos of the sixth movement, to the unexpected two-minute church-like organ solo. Le Cid is a festival of Spanish tropes, tunes and clichés from the very start. The inevitable cor anglais solo, in ‘Madrilène’, is just gorgeous. It’s as tuneful and colourful as the Spanish pastiches of Chabrier and Debussy, which is to say it’s a ton of fun.
The Barcelona Symphony plays excellently throughout, that one wimpy percussion issue confined to a single track. They seem to especially enjoy the Le Cid music, but who wouldn’t? Patrick Gallois continues to prove himself an extremely skilled, sensitive conductor of ballet music. You could imagine people dancing to this album. Given how good the music is, it’s extremely rare to have it collected on disc without the full operas alongside. Frémaux and Marriner have recorded Le Cid but for sound, panache and comprehensiveness, it’s hard to beat this. What fun.
It is now twenty years ago that Henri Ledroit left us. He had been one of the first artists to have faith in the grand enterprise that Ricercar launched in 1980; the recordings that we then took such great delight in making now enshrine priceless memories of him and his art. Henri Ledroit personified the both the joy of singing and the intelligent delivery of the text; these qualities, combined with his richly warm and yet so delicate and fragile voice, created his magic. This recording -- our 2009 catalogue is included with it -- is devoted in the main to repertoire that is indeed seldom performed: the cantatas and airs de cour by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. We are now proud to present it for re-release, accompanied by an introductory text by Catherine Cessac. The recording has been completed with several sacred compositions that were amongst Henri Ledroit's first recordings. This compilation also marks the re-release of the complete recordings made by this wonderful musician. This recording offers the listener the pleasure of rediscovering the unique moments of emotion that Henri Ledroit shared with such generosity with all who had the pleasure of hearing him. These same emotions are still alive today: those that he brought to us and those that we experienced as we listened to him.
