It was at the Haute École de Musique de Genève (where he studied with Nathalie Stutzmann) that countertenor Jonas Descotte founded Les Argonautes, an ensemble specialising in Baroque music. Although Descotte structures the core of the interpretations, he aims to give his musicians maximum musical freedom in their search for meaningful detail.The name of his ensemble wasn’t chosen at random. It pays homage to the Argos—celebrated as the first ship to sail the seas—and refers to his own family's six-year epic voyage around the Atlantic on a catamaran. The story behind the Argonauts seems to be a perfect metaphor for the philosophy of the ensemble and its leader's own experience: strong-willed heroes with their own individual achievements, whose resources are channelled and are themselves guided by Jonas.Jonas Descotte and his Argonauts have crossed the Channel, at least symbolically, for this very lively version of Dido and Aeneas, which is considered to be the first opera, or semi-opera, composed in England. Recorded in Geneva at the Temple de Chêne-Bougeries in 2021, Purcell's masterpiece condenses the full range of human emotion into less than an hour, employing multiple forms and combining comedy with tragedy. Jonas Descottes has constructed his programme judiciously and follows this short opera with extracts from Circe, where the evocation of hell provides an excellent epilogue to the tragedy of the lovers of Carthage. © François Hudry/Qobuz

In the program notes for this recording of Dido and Aeneas, conductor Leonardo García Alarcón makes a persuasive scholarly and analytical case for his many unconventional performance choices, but listeners should be forewarned that this is not a version of the opera for the faint of heart or for committed traditionalists. Most noticeably, this performance, which features the Geneva-based ensembles La Nouvelle Ménestrandie and Cappella Mediterranea, makes Dido and Aeneas seem like a very big opera, something on the order of Il Trovatore in its wrenching intensity, if not in its length. Alarcón's augmentation of the orchestra with oboes and bassoons doubling the strings in some places, as he argues Purcell would have done, is partly accountable for its enlarged sense of scale. Equally significant is the ferocity with which both the singers and players tear into their parts and the extremity of some of the characterizations. Dido and the Sorceress, for instance, express their anguish and hatred, respectively, by bending pitches to a degree rarely heard in "classical" music settings, and the Witches sing in creaky, crone-like character voices. It should be remembered that "baroque" was originally a term of derision meaning something misshapen or distorted, the equivalent of wagging the finger and saying, "you've gone too far this time!" That may be exactly the reaction of some listeners, but whether you're appalled or beguiled, this is a Dido and Aeneas that's likely to keep you on the edge of your seat with suspense. Few performances of the opera have so clearly delineated its arch-shaped trajectory; it opens with Dido lamenting the possibility of Aeneas' inconstancy and ends with her lamenting its actuality, and in this recording just about everything that transpires between the laments happens at a fever pitch of musical and dramatic tension. The fact that Alarcón is able to create and sustain the performance's intensity is a testimony not only to his vision and skill but to the willingness of the musicians to throw themselves so wholeheartedly into the venture. Every role, even the smallest, demonstrates the singers' investment in their parts. They all sing beautifully and powerfully, and manage to convey a verismo-like theatricality while operating (more or less) within the bounds of accepted Baroque performance practice. Aeneas can easily come across as a cipher, but Alejandro Meerapfel gives him substance, someone about whom the Queen of Carthage could believably get worked up. Countertenor Fabián Schofrin is a weird, sinister Sorceress. As Belinda, Yeree Suh sings with exceptional warmth, clarity, and sweetness. Solenn' Lavanant Linke's soprano is sumptuous and creamy, and she makes a regal but womanly Dido. The orchestra plays with aching expressivity and the continuo realizations are marvelously inventive. The recording is vividly present and is miked at a high level for a classical album, which also contributes to its unusually large sense of scale. Highly recommended.© TiVo

The only true Purcell opera – the others considered to be semi-operas, a format closer to musical theatre – Dido & Aeneas is a masterpiece that offers such musical density that the piece was destined to radically influence the tastes of English society, which quickly embraced the arrival of entirely sung operas. The work was created in London in 1896, in a version that was surely more complete than the one that we possess today, according to the libretto by Nahum Tate which mentions a prologue of music that has since been lost. Taking on the myth of The Aeneid, the opera is a loose adaptation of Book IV of the work by Virgil. The British ensemble La Nuova Musica – whose recording of Couperin’s “Tenebrae Readings for Holy Wednesday” on harmonia mundi we so admired in 2016 – offers us a luminous and balanced version of the work, accompanied by a cast of top-notch soloists, Fleur Barron and Matthew Brook being first in line. A record released by PentaTone, this sneak preview is presented exclusively by Qobuz for download until September 21, 2023. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

It's hard to imagine today but Atlanta used to very much be a musical backwater. Before the early '90s—when the city became the epicenter of American R&B and hip-hop thanks to the work done by L.A. Reid, Babyface, Jermaine Dupri, and many others—Atlanta was pretty much just a huge Southern city more known as a requisite tour stop (it's where the Sex Pistols kicked off their U.S. tour!) than for its homegrown talent. There had always been a vibrant music scene, but despite its creative breadth, it was mostly appreciated at the local level. Occasionally, artists would break through, but the idea of an "Atlanta scene" was laughable, a situation made even more embarrassing by the fact that tiny Athens—just an hour north —boasted a far more critically appreciated stable of bands. So when, in 1990, a band called the Black Crowes began dominating rock radio with their debut album, even some Atlanta music fans were surprised to discover that this was, in fact, a local act. Previously known as Mr. Crowe’s Garden, the band achieved moderate regional success with their punkish and somewhat shambolic take on classic rock tropes, but the focused, muscular, and surgically precise sound of Shake Your Money Maker was an altogether different beast. While fellow Atlantans Georgia Satellites had hit paydirt a few years earlier with a similar—albeit more barroom-focused—formula, the Crowes approach was far more studious. While they would later become renowned for their loose, jammy live shows (and even their follow-up would reveal a far more interesting spectrum of southern musical influences), Shake Your Money Maker found the Black Crowes reading the catechism from The Holy Book of Rock & Roll like the most true-believing evangelists. And while the album didn't score a whole lot of points for originality, it more than made up for that with its confidence, swagger, and sheer skill. Of course, Chris Robinson's vocal style—equal parts Mick Jagger and Faces-era Rod Stewart with a measure of gravelly Stax soul for flavor—was a highly effective delivery mechanism, but the twin guitars of his brother Rich Robinson and Jeff Cease (who would be the first of many "former members" of the band) were both beefy and melodic, and the highly underrated rhythm section of Johnny Colt and Steve Gorman managed to be both locked in tight and fiercely swinging. The combination was irresistible, providing a powerful reminder of the instinctive strengths of rock 'n' roll (which, you must remember, was kind of on the ropes in those post-spandex, pre-grunge years). Sure, scoring a hit with a cover of a hit ("Hard to Handle") may not be the best way to establish your creative abona fides, but being able to follow that up with more interesting singles like "Jealous Again" and "Twice As Hard" proved that the band was capable of more than just xeroxing the greats. This fleshed-out 30th anniversary reissue does a marvelous job of putting the work into perspective, unearthing early Mr. Crowe’s Garden demos, a few studio outtakes ("Charming Mess" being the best), and an absolutely barnstorming hometown concert recorded around the time of the album's release. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Backed by the Sun King despite a lukewarm audience reception at first, Lully's Atys (1676) went on to become one of the composer's most successful operas, with revivals at French court theaters as late as 1753. In modern times, however, it is a considerably rarer item due to the massive forces and time required. Christophe Rousset was in the pit as harpsichordist when conductor William Christie gave the first modern revival of the work in the late '80s. That experience marks this 2024 release, which made classical best-seller lists at the beginning of that year. That is not common for a hefty five-act Baroque opera, but even a bit of sampling will confirm why it happened: Rousset, from the keyboard, brings tremendous energy to the opera. He pushes the tempo in the numerous dances and entrance numbers, and the musicians of Les Talens Lyriques and the singers of the Choeur du Chambre de Namur, all of whom have worked closely with Rousset in the past, keep right up. The singers in the solo roles are all fine; haut-contre Reinoud Van Mechelen in the title role and Ambroisine Bré as the goddess Cybèle, who sets the tragic plot in motion, are standouts. The sound from the increasingly engineering-expert Château de Versailles label is exceptionally clear in complex textures, and the sensuous cover art (representing, it is true, not the Roman mythological figure of Atys but Hippomène and Atalante) is a bonus. In the end, this is Rousset's Atys, and that is a very good thing.© James Manheim /TiVo

Opting not to fix what broke them, You Could Have It So Much Better serves up more of the stylish, angular sound that worked so well on Franz Ferdinand's debut. After years of rehearsing in abandoned Glasgow warehouses and playing in relatively obscure groups like the Yummy Fur, it's perfectly understandable why the band chose not to mess with a good thing -- and why they chose to follow up the breakthrough success of Franz Ferdinand so quickly. But, after a year and a half of near-instant acclaim and constant touring, Franz Ferdinand return with songs that just aren't as consistently good as the album that made them so successful in the first place. A lot of You Could Have It So Much Better feels like a super-stylized caricature of the band's sound, with exaggeratedly spiky guitars, brooding crooning, and punky-yet-danceable beats. This isn't an entirely bad thing: "The Fallen" begins the album with a wicked, gleeful welcome back that embraces the jaunty mischief running through most of Franz Ferdinand's best moments, while "I'm Your Villain" effortlessly nails the darkly sexy vibe they strived for on Franz Ferdinand. Meanwhile, the famous friends, arty parties, and "shocking" homoeroticism of "Do You Want To" -- which feels more like a victory lap than a comeback single -- play like knowing, tongue-in-cheek self-parody. However, too many tracks on You Could Have It So Much Better are witty and energetic in the moment but aren't especially memorable. "You're the Reason I'm Leaving," "What You Meant," "This Boy," and the oddly anti-climactic finale, "Outsiders," are Franz-lite -- not at all bad, but not as good as even their early B-sides and certainly not up to the level of "Take Me Out." What helps save the album from being completely predictable are slower moments like the pretty, jangly "Walk Away" and atmospheric, piano-driven songs such as "Fade Together" (which really should've been the final track). Best of all is "Eleanor Put Your Boots On," a gorgeous, Beatlesque ballad that suggests that if Franz Ferdinand have songs this good in them, they're selling themselves, and their fans, short with most of the songs here (you could have it so much better, indeed). Not so much a sophomore slump as a rushed follow-up, You Could Have It So Much Better probably would've been better if Franz Ferdinand had waited until they had a batch of songs as consistent as their first album, but as it stands, it's still pretty good. © Heather Phares /TiVo

Jeff Buckley was a mess of contradictions: a perfectionist who believed in spontaneity, a man who was at once humble and vain, a musician who shunned his father's tumultuous legacy while creating one of his own. These are some of the reasons why he took his time writing and recording the material for his second album, laboring over many songs for months at a time. Given such painstaking methods, it shouldn't have been a surprise that recording was an equally fastidious process. Buckley recorded enough material for an album with producer Tom Verlaine, but deciding that the results weren't quite right, he scrapped them and moved to Memphis to record the album again. He reworked a few songs as home demos as he prepared to cut the album, but it was never made -- Buckley died in a tragic drowning accident before entering the studio. As a way to enlarge his legacy, his mother and record label rounded up the majority of the existing unreleased recordings, releasing them as the double-disc set Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Excepting a few awkward moments and middle-eights, it's hard to see why Buckley rejected the Verlaine productions that make up disc one. The material isn't necessarily a progression from Grace; it's more like a stripped-down, edgier take on the sweeping, jazz-tinged goth folk-rock that made the first album so distinctive. Neither the nearly finished first disc nor the homemade demos and re-recordings on the second disc offer any revelations, but that's not necessarily a disappointment. Sketches adds several wonderful songs to his catalog, offering further proof of his immense talent. And that, of course, is what makes the album as sad as it is exciting.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Jean-Baptiste Lully's Cadmus & Hermione of 1673 was arguably the first true French opera, telling a tragic story (Lully and his librettist Philippe Quinault called it a tragédie en lyrique), employing Italian-style recitatives, and collecting the varied music and dance forms of Louis XIV's opulent court into a coherent narrative that at once celebrated Louis (he is conflated with Cadmus of Thebes) and moved beyond the ceremonial nature of earlier French dramatic music. It's a sprawling work, with five acts, an overture, and a sizable Prologue with its own overture; highlights include a dragon that eats Africans, a monster snake, and a full complement of Greek gods and goddesses. Realization of the work has, until now, been beyond the means of early music performance groups, and this is the world premiere recording of the opera, made in 2019 and based on a 2008 performance at Versailles Palace by some of the same performers. The leader is Vincent Dumestre, conducting the Le Poème Harmonique orchestra and the vocal ensembles Aedes. The forces are large enough to capture the splendor of the music (thankfully, no one-voice-per-part techniques here), and Dumestre is alert to the huge variety of musical devices Lully brings to bear on his story; there are dances, big choruses, bagpipes, and much more. Cadmus & Hermione may be a difficult work to bring to life for modern audiences, but Dumestre keeps things moving along and probably comes as close as anyone could. Of course, anyone interested in the life of the French court in the 17th century will find this an essential acquisition that will keep giving and giving. © TiVo

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

While Bill Frisell has released plenty of albums under his own name, this is his first true solo album -- the first on which he plays all of the instruments himself. These include electric and acoustic guitar, six-string banjo, and bass, as well as the occasional looped sample. To call the music he creates on this album "introspective" would be something of an understatement. This won't come as a complete surprise to his fans -- there has always been a gentle and meditative quality to his music, and even when he's gotten wild with his trio or with downtown pals like John Zorn or Vernon Reid, those moments of abrasive abandon have always seemed like detours from his more natural, but no less inventive and interesting, sweetness and good humor. But there's a darkness around the edges this time out that is unusual, as if he's lonely playing by himself and a little bit unnerved at the thoughts and feelings he's being forced to face on his own. His rendition of the A.P. Carter classic "Wildwood Flower" starts out with an extended Delta-blues introduction, which is a pretty unusual choice. There are other cover versions, including Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and Gershwin's "My Man's Gone Now," both of which deeply explore the emotional wreckage described by the songs' lyrics; his own compositions, such as the vaguely surfy "Variation on a Theme" and the slightly ominous "Big Bob," seem to be cut out of similar cloth. There are moments of light relief, such as the gently lovely title track and the brief banjo interlude "Fingers Snappin' and Toes Tappin'," but the overall mood here is relatively dark, though consistently beautiful.© Rick Anderson /TiVo