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Brahms: La belle Maguelone

Stéphane Degout

Classical - Released October 6, 2023 | B Records

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Nimrod Borenstein: Concerto for Piano & Orchestra, Op. 91, Light and Darkness, Op. 80 & Shirim, Op. 94

Clelia Iruzun

Classical - Released January 20, 2023 | SOMM Recordings

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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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37ème Festival International de Piano de La Roque d'Anthéron

Iddo Bar-Shaï

Classical - Released July 14, 2017 | Mirare

Booklet
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Alkan: 12 Etudes, Op. 35

Mark Viner

Classical - Released November 1, 2017 | Piano Classics

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Souvenirs

Gautier Capuçon

Classical - Released October 1, 2021 | Warner Classics

Booklet
The listener seeing the title "Souvenirs" on this release by cellist Gautier Capuçon might expect a program of encores, mostly French, with composers like Saint-Saëns prominent in the mix. Saint-Saëns is there, but the three-CD program opens with the magnificently sober Bach Suite No. 1 for solo cello, BWV 1007, and continues with the spiky, virtuosic Cello Sonata, Op. 8, of Kodály. What's happening is that Capuçon has combined new recordings of the Bach and Kodály, and of works by Henri Dutilleux and Javier Martínez Campos, with a sort of greatest-hits collection of his recordings over 20 years for the Erato label, including chamber music and concertos. It's a rather unwieldy set with little to unify it beyond Capuçon's presence. But there are lots of attractive stops along the way, beginning with the unusually warm, lyrical reading of the Bach G major cello suite. One is also reminded at several points of Capuçon's skills as a chamber player as he melts into the texture. Capuçon fans will find plenty of souvenirs here, but the thing is that the collection will offer enjoyable listening to newcomers as well.© 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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Après un rêve - Mélodies pour voix et piano

Sandrine Piau

Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released March 21, 2011 | naïve classique

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The Complete Songs of Fauré, Vol. 4

Malcolm Martineau

Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released July 9, 2021 | Signum Records

Hi-Res Booklet
It's uncommon to hear a body of songs performed by an accompanist, bringing together a variety of singers for the project. However, that's what pianist Malcolm Martineau did with his cycle of Poulenc songs, and he's done it again with Fauré, a substantial four-volume series of which this release is the last. It has much in common with the first three, with eight singers joining Martineau and matched in his estimation with proper repertory. Most are British, and they represent an appealing mixture of old hands and up-and-comers. Countertenor Iestyn Davies may be a surprise, but he is effectively deployed in more impersonal numbers like Noël, Op. 43, No. 1. The richer, plummier numbers go to veteran soprano Isobel Buchanan, and younger baritone John Chest is a fine, restrained match for the L'horizon chimérique set, Op. 118, from the end of Fauré's life. Yet throughout, the star is once again Martineau, who is an expert in the exquisitely subtle language of Fauré's songs, where a fleeting thought may be represented in full by a little inflection of the piano. The songs here date from various sessions ranging as far back as 2014, and the first three volumes in the series may be a trifle more cohesive, but really the whole thing is an accomplishment worth the listener's time. The church sound is wrong for this intimate music, however.© TiVo
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Les 25 ans !!!: Le Concert Spirituel, Hervé Niquet

Concert Spirituel Ensemble

Chamber Music - Released October 22, 2012 | Glossa

Booklet
Le Concert Spirituel, named for the concert series (not exclusively spiritual) that was held on the second floor of the Tuileries in the 18th century until all hell broke loose, has specialized in French Baroque music. The group was founded in 1987 by leader Hervé Niquet, who was playing in William Christie's pioneering group Les Arts Florissants and heard a conductor, presumably not Christie, disparage the French repertory. Resolved to do better, he founded a group of his own. That nugget comes from the notes to this release, which were penned by Niquet himself and which provide a real sense of the enthusiasm that has attended Le Concert Spirituel since its beginnings. The album is a collection marking the group's 25th anniversary, and it could serve as an admirable introduction to the ensemble's work, and indeed to the French Baroque in general as well as related music in other countries and times. Consider the five divisions of the program, which bespeak an effort to come to terms with the music in its own context: "Musique religieuse," "Démesure" (Excess), Jardin Secret (Secret Garden), Opéras, and "Mes petits bijoux préférés," which means My Favorite Little Jewels and consists of Niquet's own picks. The "Démesure" group is not only a classification French listeners of the time would have recognized, and perhaps smiled at, but also indicates a chief value of this collection: like all the best anthologies, it presents the group as a living, evolving being and brings the listener something new. Niquet has researched large, "excessive" works such as the 60-voice Missa sopra Ecco si beato giorno of Alessandro Striggio (excerpted on CD 1, tracks 13 and 14), and those on that section of the program represent the latest in his series of musical adventures, delightfully unaffected by minimalist trends in Baroque performance. All the music was recorded between 1999 and 2011 for the Glossa label, and it has a sonic unity despite the large generic variety on display. Recommended for all levels of familiarity with the French Baroque.© TiVo
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Schumann : L'amour et la vie d'une femme & Liederkreis Op. 39 - Mozart, Verdi & Tchaïkovsky : Airs d'opéras (Diapason n°578)

Sena Jurinac

Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released May 28, 2009 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
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Fauré: Nocturnes & Barcarolles

Marc-André Hamelin

Classical - Released September 1, 2023 | Hyperion

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
The virtuoso Marc-André Hamelin isn't the first pianist one would think of when it comes to Fauré's music, but he has recorded all kinds of things, even ragtime, and as it happens, he does quite well with the dense miniatures heard on this album. Fauré's Nocturnes are at some level connected to Chopin's but are quite different, with murky chromaticism, especially in the later ones, setting the night atmosphere. Fauré is thought of as a musical conservative, but one would hardly know it from the pieces here that stubbornly refuse to settle on a tonal center. The counterpoint is complex, and a successful performance is one that untangles it. There isn't big, pianistic virtuosity here, but Hamelin's ability to balance Fauré's registers is virtuosic in its own way. The Barcarolles, a genre not much pursued by other composers but for Fauré seeming to allow rays of Venetian sunshine into his rather closed-in French world, are lighter but basically cut from the same cloth. Things lighten up with the final Dolly Suite, Op. 56, where Hamelin performs with his wife, Cathy Fuller. (For those wondering, neither Mi-a-ou nor the Kitty-valse has anything to do with cats.) Although Hyperion's church sound is not idiomatic, it does not damage the remarkable clarity in what is a significant entry in the Fauré discography, one that landed on classical best-seller lists in the late summer of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Shostakovich & Kondrashin: Complete Symphonies

Kirill Kondrashin

Classical - Released January 1, 2006 | JSC Firma Melodiya

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Im Freien

Zlata Chochieva

Classical - Released May 19, 2023 | naïve

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Chopin: 24 Préludes, Piano Sonata No. 2

Martha Argerich

Classical - Released January 1, 1977 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

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Brahms: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 4 & Tragic Overture

Otto Klemperer

Classical - Released June 9, 2023 | Warner Classics

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Take 3

Patricia Kopatchinskaja

Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
Take 3 is the third release in a deliberate series by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, clarinetist Reto Bieri, and pianist Polina Leschenko (Take 2 appeared almost a decade before the 2024 release of this album). All have had innovative programs, and anticipation for this release helped propel it onto classical best-seller charts in early 2024. Listeners will not be disappointed. The booklet notes contain some rather murky reflections from the players about the repertory included, but the basic idea is that most of the music reflects influences from roots traditions, jazz above all. Only one of the composers, Paul Schoenfield, is American, and his Trio for violin, clarinet, and piano draws not on jazz but on Eastern European Hasidic music. The works by Europeans show various ways of tentatively embracing jazz. Interspersed among the selections are movements from Poulenc's rarely heard L'invitation au château, which works well enough inasmuch as the work was written as incidental music from a play. Poulenc evokes the waltz and other European dance forms, but his Clarinet Sonata, written for jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, has a stronger jazz flavor. So, too, does Bartók's trio Contrasts, also written for Goodman. This is the most distinctive performance on the album, as the players give it a rhythmically free treatment that is certainly jazzy but that diverges somewhat from the notated music. The three players have a remarkable rapport throughout, whether playing klezmer (in Serban Nichifor's closing Klezmer Dance) or in the divergent idioms of the other composers. The album both breaks new ground and is a lot of fun, and it is very nicely recorded at a Radio RSF studio in Zurich.© James Manheim /TiVo