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Saint-Saëns: Études, Op. 52 & 111

François-René Duchable

Classical - Released January 1, 1981 | Warner Classics

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Entrez dans la danse... (Hahn, Ravel, Poulenc, Schmitt...)

Anne Queffélec

Solo Piano - Released January 13, 2017 | Mirare

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Nuits

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released April 3, 2020 | Alpha Classics

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As the symbiosis between the art of the poet and that of the composer, the French mélodie became the jewel of the salons of the ‘Belle Époque’. By placing a string quartet and a piano around the singer, Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle, Lekeu’s Nocturne and Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson oscillate between chamber musical intimacy and orchestral ambition. Alongside these famous pioneering pieces, this programme devised by the Palazzetto Bru Zane champions a return to the art of transcription, so popular in the nineteenth century, with the aim of expanding the repertory for voice, strings and piano in order to unearth some forgotten treasures. Hence Hahn, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, La Tombelle, Ropartz, Louiguy and Messager all appear in a programme whose guiding thread is the emotions of nocturnal abandonment: the charms of twilight, the trajectory of dreams, the terror of nightmare or the exhilaration of festive occasions. Alexandre Dratwicki has made these arrangements in the style of the nineteenth century. Appropriately enough, the programme ends with La Vie en rose, for this music offers a kaleidoscope of all the colours of human feeling. The texture of solo strings and piano sets Véronique Gens’s incomparable storytelling artistry in a new ligh. © Alpha Classics
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Armin Jordan conducts Debussy, Roussel & Chausson (Live)

Felicity Lott

Classical - Released September 4, 2020 | audite Musikproduktion

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The prestigious Lucerne Festival, which has seen, and still today showcases, the very best conductors, soloists and orchestras on the planet, continues to publish its exceptional archives. This new offering displays the sumptuous return of Armin Jordan who led the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande between 1985 and 1997 and gave a second “golden age” to the Genovese ensemble after the fruitful years of Ansermet (1918-1967).With his Germanic and Latin cultural heritage, Armin Jordan took pleasure in gracing works with a generous and tormented lyricism. His only two appearances at the podium of the ancient Kunsthaus at the festival of his birth town are brought together here with his superb recordings created in 1988 and 1994. Here we find his stunning sense of colour and unique mix of fluidity, transparence and vigour which he made his own.After Prelude to the afternoon of a Faun with its hazy poeticism, we discover the Second Suite of Bacchus and Arriadne by Albert Roussel led by a beating drum with a touring OSR at the top of its game. The strength of this interpretation perfectly fills a gap as Jordan had never recorded this flamboyant work in studio. Such is not the case with Poème de l’amour et de la mer which was recorded in Monte-Carlo for Erato with Jessye Norman.In this 1994 Lucerne concert, he directed his dear companion Felicity Lott. While the voice of this English cantata singer doesn’t have the amber-scented and sensual colour of her American colleague, she nevertheless possesses a timbre of perfect harmony with the style and colour of the Chausson conductor. Finally, one can admire Ansermet’s beautiful orchestration recorded in 1932 with Claude Debussy’s Six Épigraphes Antiques where he displayed the most intricate of details as much as Jordan perfectly translates its flourishes and subtleties. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Jardins suspendus

Eric Le Sage

Classical - Released October 28, 2022 | Sony Classical

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La harpe impressionniste: Debussy, Fauré, Saint-Saëns & Pierné

Marielle Nordmann

Classical - Released January 1, 1982 | Warner Classics

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Fiançailles pour rire (Mélodies françaises)

Natalie Dessay

Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released September 18, 2015 | Erato - Warner Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4 étoiles Classica
Fiançailles pour rire (roughly, Betrothal for Kicks) is the title of a set of short songs composed in 1939 by Francis Poulenc and included in this recital by soprano Natalie Dessay and her exquisite accompanist Philippe Cassard. That group of songs, and the extremely stylized graphics of the album, correspond well enough to the implications of the title, but for the most part the program is not especially lighthearted. What you get here is a little survey of French songs, mostly not so well known, concluding with Heni Duparc, the earliest composer and the one all the others imitated despite the slenderness of his surviving output. Those songs make a luminous finale, but Dessay's way with a text and her realizations of the characters contained in the songs by Fauré, Chabrier, and Chausson make the entire program compelling. The composers of these songs probably had a purer voice in mind, and Dessay's fascinating instrument, agile but with a bit of gravel in it by now, is unorthodox. It is never less than compelling, however, and about the superb Erato/Warner Bros. sound, from the superbly appropriate Salle Colonne in Paris, there will be little dispute. Highly recommended, especially for La Dessay's numerous devotees.© TiVo

Wonderworld

Gina Alice

Classical - Released November 5, 2021 | Universal Music China

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This release by pianist Gina Alice (Gina Alice Redlinger), wife of the famed Lang Lang (who turns up on a couple of tracks here), was recorded in Shanghai and made and marketed through the Universal conglomerate's Chinese division. They've done their jobs well; the sound from the Shanghai Vocational School of Contemporary Music's studio is excellent. Several of the short pieces on the program are Chinese in the vein of traditional melodies. Thus, one may take this release as an example of the growing effort to market classical music to Chinese audiences, and as such, it is quite interesting. It's also a bit ironic, for Gina Alice is not Chinese but a German of Korean background. Perhaps, for this reason, the album has appeared as part of the regular release schedule of the Deutsche Grammophon label, a division of Universal these days. Indeed, it shows quite a mix of influences; Gina Alice puts together the materials of a crossover album in unusual ways. She moves from Schumann to Max Richter to Ryuichi Sakamoto to Brian Eno, treating them all as part of the same musical universe and sequencing them effectively. The mood has the usual crossover dreamy calm but admits variation, and the fact that this is a double album is unusual in itself. Is this a crossover album aimed at drive-time stress elimination? Yes, and its marketing is calibrated within an inch of its life, but it is also a distinctive example of the genre, and one has the feeling of glimpsing part of the life of classical music in the coming Asian Century.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Nuit d'étoiles (Mélodies françaises de Fauré, Debussy, Poulenc)

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released February 1, 2000 | Warner Classics

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Piano Encores

Tristan Pfaff

Solo Piano - Released April 20, 2015 | Aparté

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Confidentes

Marie Hallynck

Chamber Music - Released June 11, 2021 | Cypres

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2021/22, a cultural season unlike any other, brings the 30th anniversary of Cypres. Musical renewal and reinvention is of the essence for any record label in today’s environment. An enterprising spirit; a constant quest for newly composed works; firm roots in the local musical landscape; representation of prestigious names and advocacy of young talent: all these are elements that constitute our particular creative formula. Now that we are 30 years old we can confidently take pleasure in sharing our musical philosophy with you. This first recording of our anniversary season provides a showcase for two gifted sisters who go back a long way with Cypres. Their joy in performing together is palpable as they present a programme that is original in its conception, intimate and deeply touching. This album contains a number of pieces that evoke memories – the musical equivalent of photos in a box in the attic. Some are original compositions for this instruments set, others have been arranged by the two sisters for the occasion. What would Frédéric Chopin have thought when he heard this arrangement of his Etude No. 7, Op. 25 sounding like a dialogue between cello and harp? This music is the very essence of life: a subtle sway of memories, flashes of light, tears, death and smiles. © Cyprès
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The Legendary Berlin Concert

Vladimir Horowitz

Classical - Released September 21, 2009 | Sony Classical

Œuvres pour piano (Intégrale, volume 2)

Jordi Masó

Classical - Released November 9, 1999 | Naxos

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Musique classique pour la détente: calmer bébé

Filip Lundqvist

Classical - Released May 17, 2019 | Masterpieces Filip Lundqvist

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Debussy: Complete Orchestral Work

Jun Märkl

Classical - Released January 30, 2012 | Naxos

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Reflet

Sandrine Piau

Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | Alpha Classics

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In a world of "singles," pursued even by classical music labels nowadays, here is a whole album that makes up a single, sublime musical utterance. Reflet is a follow-up, similarly concerned with light effects, to soprano Sandrine Piau's German-language Clair-Obscur of a few years back. The German songs might have been a bigger stretch for Piau than the French material here, but Reflet has possibly an even more sublime coherence. One feels that every note is almost foreordained as the program opens with classic orchestral songs from Berlioz, Henri Duparc, and the less common Charles Koechlin, proceeding into darker, more mysterious realms with Ravel's Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, and ending with the youthful ebullience of Britten's Quatre chansons françaises. An illustration of how carefully calibrated everything is here comes with two Debussy pieces, Clair de lune and "Pour remercier la pluie" (from the Six Épigraphes Antiques), arranged for orchestra from other media. These serve as entr'actes between the sections of Piau's program, and they should by all rights have been annoying: aren't there enough genuine orchestral pieces that could have filled the bill? But just listen. These fit into the patterns that run through the whole album, and they make perfect sense, just like everything else. Piau's voice is delicate, soaring, and richly beautiful; one of the miracles of the current scene is its durability and versatility. Her support from conductor Jean-François Verdier, leading the Victor Hugo Orchestra, is confidently smooth, never intruding on the spell Piau weaves. A magnificent orchestral song recital that made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Berlioz: Les nuits d'été, Op. 7, H 81b - Ravel: Shéhérazade, M. 41 - Saint-Saëns: Mélodies persanes, Op. 26

Marie-Nicole Lemieux

Classical - Released September 29, 2023 | Warner Classics

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This is a nicely programmed album consisting of French song cycles spaced several decades apart from the 19th and early 20th centuries. One of them, the Mélodies Persanes ("Persian Songs") of Saint-Saëns, is not a common item; with its bouncy text-setting, nobody would compare it to the deep Eastern influences woven into various Ravel works, but then, Ravel was inspired to execute those by listening to Saint-Saëns. In Berlioz's Les nuits d'été and Ravel's Shéhérazade, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux has plenty of competition, but there is less for the Saint-Saëns. Another attraction is the work of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under conductor Kazumi Yamada, neither a household name. The group is velvety smooth in the Berlioz cycle, with quiet and perfectly controlled string sound throughout. The strings match the voice of Lemieux beautifully; both have a luxuriance that fits the extravagantly Romantic texts of the Berlioz. So, everything is in place here, and listeners' reactions to the whole are likely to come down to their feelings about Lemieux's voice itself. It has a rapid, confident vibrato that is remarkably pitch-accurate as it moves up and down within her range. To these ears, it is beautiful. It also doesn't vary much according to the text; the Saint-Saëns songs and Ravel's Asie, which are intended to evoke exotic melodic traits, sound much like the Berlioz. A bit of sampling will likely determine one's enjoyment of the album in general, and there are certainly many things to like here.© James Manheim /TiVo