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L'Ile Enchantée

Capriccio Stravagante Orchestra

Classical - Released July 20, 2004 | Alpha Classics

Even by the supremely high production standards of Alpha recordings, this issue is especially splendid. Entitled Versailles, L'ile enchantée, it fully lives up to its name. As directed by Skip Sempé, the widely varied program features music written for Louis XIV's pleasure palace, performed by the Capriccio Stravagante Orchestra with mezzo soprano Guillemette Laurens and bass violist Jay Bernfeld. Each work is superbly selected, and every performance is absolutely idiomatic and wonderfully alive. There is wit and tenderness and elegance and, yes, nobility to their performances, which taken together form as much a portrait of the Sun King as the palace of Versailles itself. As organized into eight Divertissements, Sempé's choices range from the grand Ouverture de Psyché by Lully to the intimate Mes Yeux by Campra, from the soulful Les Voix Humaines by Marais to the massive Passacaille in C by Louis Couperin. As captured in the evocative photographs by Jean-Baptiste Leroux and reproduced in Alpha's superlative program book, Versailles looks every bit as beautiful as this disc sounds. Anyone who loves Baroque music, particularly French Baroque music, will love this disc.© TiVo
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37ème Festival International de Piano de La Roque d'Anthéron

Iddo Bar-Shaï

Classical - Released July 14, 2017 | Mirare

Booklet
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Passions de l'âme et du cœur

Ricercar Consort

Classical - Released January 12, 2015 | Mirare

Booklet
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Pyp LIVE

Pierre-Yves Plat

Jazz - Released March 26, 2017 | PIERRE-YVES PLAT

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Les jeunes années

Catherine Collard

Classical - Released September 1, 1998 | INA Mémoire vive

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Jouissons de nos beaux ans !

Cyrille Dubois

Classical - Released September 15, 2023 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet
Those searching for singer Cyrille Dubois online will find him called variously a tenor or a countertenor. One can understand the confusion. He is actually what the French Baroque called a haut-contre, a tenor with an extended high range sung in a light falsetto-like voice. It is not a true falsetto, and really, it has to be heard to be appreciated. It is something like the Italian tenore di grazia of the early 19th century. That, in itself, is reason enough to hear this album, but wait, as the old TV pitchmen yelled, "there's more!" Dubois' program includes a good deal of Rameau, including the exuberant title track, composed when Rameau was 80, but there are also pieces by his contemporaries, mostly in a pastoral vein. Rameau was such an imposing figure that he dominated the scene, but the other composers here, like François Lupien Grenet and Bernard de Bury, are all but unknown, and many of the pieces are world premieres. They offer valuable insights into the stock characters and common ideas in the Parisian 18th century operatic scene, and they are full of opportunities for Dubois to display the striking range of colors in his voice. He is backed by the Orfeo Orchestra and Purcell Choir under the direction of György Vashegyi, who also get a group of obscure but highly listenable instrumental pieces. With fine sound from Hungary's Kodály Centre, this is a must for lovers of the French Baroque and of male voice types in general. © James Manheim /TiVo
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La Mascarade - Music For Solo Baroque Guitar & Theorbo

Rolf Lislevand

Classical - Released May 20, 2016 | ECM New Series

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or de l'année - Diapason d'or - 5 Sterne Fono Forum Klassik
The Norwegian early music lutenist and guitarist Rolf Lislevand has pooh-poohed the idea of historical authenticity, but it may be that the lovely program here would have appealed to listeners in the court of Louis XIV, for which the music was intended. Lislevand examines pieces by a pair of late 17th century composers, Robert de Visée (a rondeau by whom, plus some rather murky booklet ruminations by Lislevand, give the album its title) and the sparsely heard Francesco Corbetta, choosing slow, quasi-improvisatory pieces and dances -- preludes, chaconnes, sarabandes, passacaglias -- from each, and adding some improvised introductions. The music alternates between a very deep-voiced, many-stringed theorbo and a small, crystalline Baroque guitar. The result is an extremely reflective concert, dividing up a common stock of musical ideas in several subtle ways, that, as Lislevand points out, would have been played for a small group of connoisseurs in its own time. ECM producer Manfred Eicher is nonpareil as a recorder of music like this, but here, working in the Auditorio Stelio Molo in Lugano, he outdoes himself, evoking the "musica callada," the music that has fallen silent, of Mompou. He draws the listener into a rich communion with a remarkable player.© TiVo
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Poulenc : Pièces pour Piano

Alexandre Tharaud

Classical - Released October 15, 1996 | Arion

Distinctions Diapason d'or de l'année - Diapason d'or - Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros
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Le Concert des Oiseaux. Vincent Bouchot: Le Carnaval des animaux en péril

La Rêveuse

Classical - Released February 10, 2023 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet
Several famous pieces of music based on birdsong appeared in the 19th and 20th centuries; those by Saint-Saëns, Britten, and Ravel are here, although Messiaen is not. However, the affinity between music and birdsong had been explored for centuries before that, and the early music group La Rêveuse here provides some delightful examples. The always pictorial François Couperin is represented, as is Rameau, but other composers are less familiar but no less charming. Sample the works by Theodor Schwartzkopff, Michel Blavet, and especially Michel Pignolet de Montéclair (1667-1737), whose "Les Ramages" ("The Songs") names a group of birds and then illustrates their songs. Then there are historical-instrument versions of Saint-Saëns, Britten, and Ravel. One may accept this idea or not, but even in the latter case, they don't do much to dent the charm of the whole. The program ends with a work by contemporary composer Vincent Bouchot, Le Carnaval des animaux en péril, a kind of a take-off on Saint-Saëns for the Anthropocene era that also calls forth a striking variety of instruments from La Rêveuse. Another questionable idea is that, in keeping with the practices of this group, recorded birdsong is heard between some of the tracks. Whatever aspects of this release might be doubtful, it rarely fails to bring a smile. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Les Visiteurs: Ils ne sont pas nés d'hier ! (Bande originale du film)

Eric Lévi

Film Soundtracks - Released August 20, 1993 | Gaumont

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Fauré: Intégrale de l’oeuvre pour piano, Vol 3

Jean-Claude Pennetier

Solo Piano - Released October 1, 2015 | Mirare

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
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Lunéville, France 1751 (Oeuvres de Desmarest, Lully, Daquin, etc.)

Frédéric Desenclos

Classical - Released November 4, 2010 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason - Gramophone Editor's Choice
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Chopin : De l’enfance à la plénitude

Anne Queffélec

Classical - Released January 21, 2010 | Mirare

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Fauré: Intégrale de l'œuvre pour piano, Vol. 4

Jean-Claude Pennetier

Classical - Released May 25, 2018 | Mirare

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Maestro(s) (Bande originale du film)

Florencia di Concilio

Film Soundtracks - Released December 6, 2022 | Vendôme

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Couperin: Pièces de clavecin, Troisième Livre

Blandine Verlet

Classical - Released January 26, 2018 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 5 de Diapason
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...Les sons et les parfums - Debussy meets Chopin

Javier Perianes

Classical - Released November 4, 2013 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklets Distinctions 4F de Télérama

Saint-Saëns: Études, Op. 52 & 111

François-René Duchable

Classical - Released January 1, 1981 | Warner Classics

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Festival International de Piano de La Roque d'Anthéron: 36e édition

Zhu Xiao-Mei

Classical - Released July 15, 2016 | Mirare

Booklet
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Hélène de Montgeroult: La marquise et la marseillaise

Bruno Robilliard

Classical - Released November 21, 2005 | HORTUS

Booklet