The musical world owes a debt of gratitude to French conductor Christophe Rousset not only for the vital, exquisite performances he delivers with the ensembles Les Talens Lyriques and Choeur de Chambre de Namur, but for his work in bringing to light neglected masterpieces of Baroque opera. Lully's Bellérophon, premiered in 1679, was a huge success in its time, with an initial run of nine months. Part of its popularity was doubtless due to the parallels that could be drawn between its plot and certain recent exploits of Louis XV, but even the earliest critics recognized the score's uniqueness and exceptional quality within Lully's oeuvre, so it's perhaps surprising that it has never been recorded before. The distinctiveness of the music was likely a result at least in part of the fact that Lully's preferred librettist Philippe Quinault was out of favor at the court of Louis XV at the time, so the composer turned to Thomas Corneille for the libretto, and Corneille's literary and dramatic styles were so different from Quinault's that Lully was nudged out of his comfort zone and had to develop new solutions to questions of structure and the marrying of music to text. It is the first opera for which Lully composed fully accompanied recitatives, and that alone gives it a textural richness that surpasses his earlier works. The composer also allows soloists to sing together, something that was still a rarity in Baroque opera. There are several duets and larger ensembles; the love duet, "Que tout parle à l'envie de notre amour extreme!," is a ravishing expression of passion and happiness, as rhapsodic as anything in 19th century Italian opera. The level of musical inventiveness throughout is exceptional even for Lully; the expressiveness of the recitatives, the charm of the instrumental interludes, the originality of the choruses, and the limpid loveliness of the airs make this an opera that demands attention. Rousset and his forces give an outstanding performance that's exuberantly spirited, musically polished, rhythmically springy, and charged with dramatic urgency. The soloists are consistently of the highest order. Cyril Auvity brings a large, virile, passionate tenor to the title role and Céline Scheen is warmly lyrical as his lover Philonoë. Ingrid Perruche is fiercely powerful as the villain, Stéenobée, and Jean Teitgen is a secure, authoritative Apollo. Soloists, chorus, and orchestra are fluent in the subtle inflections of French middle Baroque ornamentation. The sound of the live recording is very fine, with a clean, immediate, realistic ambience. This is a release that fans of Baroque opera will not want to miss. Highly recommended. © TiVo

One year after winning a Qobuzissime for his first Sibelius monograph, Klaus Mäkelä is back with the Orchestre de Paris for a programme devoted to Stravinsky's two stage masterpieces: The Rite of Spring and The Firebird. The Rite of Spring is perhaps best remembered for its chaotic premiere in May 1913, Paris, where it famously provoked a riot amongst the audience. Over time, this event has left its mark on history as one of the most notorious artistic scandals of the 20th century. It’s impossible to overlook this vital work today, and yet its canonisation has arguably caused its monstrous and archaic character to fade out of our collective memory.Somehow, Mäkelä manages to completely restore the cathartic dimension of the piece. From the meticulous choice of tempos to the contrasts between the different orchestral sections, every measure of the score is rich and invigorating. This young Finn is a true master, revealing himself as a conductor of rare sensitivity and incisive vision that commands with confidence. On the flipside, The Firebird is inspired by a Russian folk tale in which Ivan Tsarevich battles the demigod Kashchei. Under Mäkelä, it becomes a grandiose festival of light and sound; a ballet imbued with a visceral sense of urgency that keeps the listener captivated throughout. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

The Montreal-born pianist Louis Lortie has emerged as one of the world's top specialists in French music of the first half of the 20th century. He is capable of great subtlety, but he does not give short shrift to the pure melodic pleasures and the popular and jazz influences that are integral to the tradition. This Poulenc album is a delight, and it might be the only one you need for Poulenc's music for piano and ensemble. The Piano Concerto of 1949 is not one of Poulenc's more famous works, but the performance here by Lortie and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner is masterful, with intricate weaving of piano and orchestra balanced by melodic straightforwardness, including an intriguing quotation of "Way Down Upon the Swanee River" in a kind of Latinized version in the finale. The first movement seems to have a wash of piano sound, emerging seamlessly into melody. The more familiar Concerto for two pianos and orchestra receives a vigorous performance, with Hélène Mercier on the second piano extremely well-coordinated with Lortie, and there are several crystalline smaller pieces including Aubade, a neoclassic suite for piano and an ensemble of 18 instruments. Chandos' studio sound here is absolutely superb, and this is destined to be a cornerstone Poulenc release. It's a joy from start to finish.© TiVo

Denied early in his career by Philharmonia Orchestra's management, Sir Simon Rattle realized his dream of programming a concert of these three early Stravinsky ballets in a 2017 festival that launched his time as the music director of the venerable London Symphony Orchestra. It is indeed an interesting concept as the audience is given a chance to hear the harmonic and stylistic changes of Stravinsky's writing in these ballets, which were, incredibly, written within five years. All three of these works were premiered at Paris' Ballets Russes. The Firebird, which premiered in 1910, launched a productive relationship between Stravinsky and Sergei Diaghilev, the company's founder. The music of The Firebird stole the show, prompting the composer to craft his own suites from the score, and it remains among his most popular and enduring works. After the success of The Firebird, Stravinsky began to compose The Rite of Spring, but he set it aside to work on a konzertstück for piano and orchestra with the images of a puppet come to life in mind. This imagery put the story of Petrushka in the eye of Diaghilev. Petrushka is set at an 1830s Shrovetide Fair and follows the exploits of a puppeteer who brings three puppets (Petrushka, the Moor, and the Ballerina) to life with his flute. Stravinsky uses folk songs cleverly throughout and departs from the more Rimsky-Korsakov-influenced writing of The Firebird, including the use of bitonality, which he took even further in The Rite of Spring. The Rite depicts a paganistic sacrifice to usher in spring, and its use of pulsating rhythms and brash harmonies famously created an uproar at its debut (the level of which is still debated). Rattle and the London Symphony perform Stravinsky's later revised versions of Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, and all three powerful and highly emotional works are well executed. © TiVo

Post-Romantic dazzle in The Firebird (1910), neo-classical elegance in Apollon musagète (1928): Igor Stravinsky is revealed here in all his diverse genius. Between the shimmering world of Russian folk traditions and the Apollonian cosmos of Greek mythology, he creates two radically different and protean musical universes. For their second recording with harmonia mundi, Gustavo Gimeno and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg reveal the splendours of these two major ballets of the early twentieth century. © harmonia mundi

Ravel is as fascinating as mysterious: as an absolute music genius and an idealist, he draws his inspiration from his origins and mixes his original accents with the dreamy and the exotic like an alchemist. By exploring all of his compositions for instrumental chamber music, this album by Ensemble Sésame aims to reflect his endless orchestral colors, nuancing sometimes lively and rhythmic flavours and sometimes sweet and spicy. © NoMadMusic

More than a century after the historic scandal of its premiere at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, The Rite of Spring has established itself as one of the "musts" of the modern orchestral repertory. And if the source of the telluric forces generated by Stravinsky lay in pagan Russia, it is beneath the arabesques of the palaces of Andalusia that Péter Eötvös found the inspiration for his third violin concerto, entitled Alhambra. The work’s dedicatees, Isabelle Faust and Pablo Heras-Casado, here present its very first recording. © harmonia mundi

Orchestral performances from music festivals are seldom worth going out of one's way for; the players are often second-stringers, and the celebrity music directors may be there to pick up a paycheck and get to their own summer homes. There are exceptions to the rule, however, and many have come from the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, also a good place to observe the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Deutsche Grammophon has recently issued several performances with the Verbier Festival Orchestra led by conductor Kent Nagano, and these are cases in point. Consider the present release, with two well-trodden works by Stravinsky. They seem fresh in Nagano's readings, with slight little twists that increase the intensity in the big rhythmic numbers like "Les augures printaniers" from Le Sacre du printemps and "Chez le marié" from Les Noces and a precise, slightly deliberate approach that brings out plenty of rhythmic detail in Le Sacre du printemps. Nagano handles his vocal soloists well in Les Noces, holding them to the tempo and catching Stravinsky's deft counterpoint. It is all quite exciting, and it was rewarded with substantial applause; this is retained on the recording. A stirring Stravinsky recording that will be welcomed even by those who have many recordings of these works in their collections.© James Manheim /TiVo

Composer Caroline Shaw won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016, becoming the prize's youngest-ever recipient. She has gone on to a good deal of popular success, collaborating with rapper Kanye West on a remix of his single "Say You Will" among other projects. She refers to Orange, pleasingly, as "a garden she and the Attacca Quartet are tending." She has now worked with this group on several projects. Shaw's style as a chamber composer has an attractive derivation from those of past composers, combined with a voice of her own. There are echoes of Stravinskian neoclassicism, and indeed the fine central work here, the five-movement Plan & Elevation, describes the estate in Washington D.C. where Shaw has served as resident composer, and where Stravinsky wrote a commissioned work (the Concerto in E flat, "Dumbarton Oaks") for an anniversary gift. As in some of Stravinsky's works, Shaw begins with square tonal material in a classic mold then gradually departs from it, sometimes considerably. Sample the opening Entr'acte, a substantial work despite its title. Glass is another influence; Shaw has been called post-post-minimalist, and despite the ungainliness of the term, there's no denying she represents a new stage in the minimalist tradition, one where motion can be introduced by texture, as well as harmony. There are points as well that have a percussive orientation and suggest an influence from Shaw's work in popular music and hip-hop (in addition to the West project, she has played violin on many popular recordings). New York's Attacca Quartet plays with a feeling of commitment to and familiarity with the music. Strongly recommended as an introduction to this rising composer.© TiVo

“Nacht und Träume” takes its name from one of Schubert’s best-loved lieder, which is joined on the album by a further 10 of the composer’s songs. All performed in orchestral versions by such masters as Berlioz, Liszt, Brahms, Strauss, Webern, Britten and Schubert himself, they are complemented by three choral numbers and an orchestral interlude. The singers are rising stars – German mezzo-soprano Wiebke Lehmkuhl and French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac – and Laurence Equilbey conducts two ensembles she founded: the Insula orchestra and the choir Accentus. © Warner Classics