Christian-Pierre La Marca’s Legacy offers a stunning exploration of the connections between Italian and Viennese classicism through some of the best cello pieces composed by Porpora, Haydn and Mozart. During the 18th century, the instrument began to emerge from the orchestra, moving away from its status as an accompaniment instrument to become a solo one in its own right. Surrounded by the wonderful musicians of the Concert de la Loge directed by Julien Chauvin, La Marca is in his element here. The baroque pitch and period instruments are fertile ground for him, and he’s free to lose himself in his full-bodied and tuneful playing.The musician’s affinity for the voice is no secret, and he’s particularly interested in transcribing vocal expression onto his instrument. The cellist maintains impeccable accuracy, notably in the transcription of ‘Danse des ombres heureuses’ by Gluck, a piece that has guided him since childhood. He forms the perfect duo with tenor Philippe Jaroussky in ‘Giusto Amor, tu che m’accendi’, taken from Porpora’s Gli orti Esperidi. The entire album maps out the heartfelt ties that bind La Marca to other performers: Jaroussky, Le Concert de la Loge, and even his brother, violist Adrien La Marca, who features on this interpretation of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante. The recording is wrapped in an indescribable warmth, and it’s evident that the performers have thoroughly enjoyed working together. When stylistic artistry meets sheer joy, you know you’re in for a treat. © Pierre Lamy/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

With his ensemble Pygmalion, Raphaël Pichon has written the listing for this album in the form of a "pastiche" of a Mass for the Dead, a Requiem both sacred and profane. While it is a long way from having all the defining traits, it does possess all the outlines: Introit, Kyrie, Gradual, Sequence, Offertory, In Paradisum... The idea came about after a recent discovery, in the Bibliothèque Nationale of an anonymous requiem mass from the 18th century, in which the writer constructed a "parody" based on musical extracts from Castor and Pollux and the Fêtes de Paphos by Jean-Philippe Rameau. Note that the term "parody" doesn't necessarily imply satire or mockery: it refers to the practice of taking up older music and setting new words to it. This fusion of sacred music (the mass) and profane music (lyrical tragedy), a common practice during the Enlightenment, was a procedure that Pichon wanted to take up. In French society at the time, when Catholicism was the norm, where the political system was monarchical rule by divine right, the representation of ancient pagan Hell on theatrical stages seemed to betray a fascination in the beliefs of the ancients. And so this programme melds together pagan fable with a Christian imaginary, where Hell takes on different faces. It is the place of unjust and eternal torment, a place of privation where a couple is separated, one half kept in Hades. But, in the lyrical tragedy, Hell is also a place of perdition: obscure forces unleashed in Sabbath rites, a Satanic vision which unearths the darkest depths of the human soul... Stéphane Degout is the author of this tragedy, bringing together such varied characters as Phaedra, Pluto, and the Parcae. The composers whose music is put to use are Rameau and Gluck, with a single borrowing from Rebel: it would have been a shame not to mention his singular Chaos (taken from Éléments), which starts with a dissonant chord containing the seven notes of the scale of D minor. © SM/Qobuz

The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Mikko Franck continue their collaboration with Alpha Classics and here invite the Maîtrise and Chœur de Radio France to join them in a Debussy programme. This recording couples La Damoiselle élue, a work described by the composer as a "little oratorio in a mystical and somewhat pagan vein", the Nocturnes for orchestra, composed between 1897 and 1899, and the Symphonic Fragments from Le Martyre de Saint-Sébastien fashioned by André Caplet less than a year after the work’s first performance, and which ensured it would not be forgotten by posterity. © Alpha Classics

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

Romanian composer George Enescu's 1931 opera Oedipe is an epic work on several levels, including its dramatic scope -- from the protagonist's birth to his death -- and in the huge performing forces it requires. It stands for the most part outside the modernist or post-Romantic operatic conventions of its time and inhabits a sound world that uses a familiar harmonic language, but in idiosyncratic ways. The composer's Romanian roots and the influences of impressionism are in strong evidence, but the work isn't easily pigeonholed; it has moments of rough folkloric primitivism, meltingly lush romanticism, elegant delicacy, and surprising experimental techniques. Oedipe was Enescu's only opera, but he shows a sure hand in the vividness of his musical characterizations and in creating dramatic tension, which the story has in abundance. The opera's finale is absolutely stunning, with wave after wave of surging, astonishing grandeur that finally subsides into an ending of breathtaking serenity. This recording, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Les Petits Chanteurs de Monaco, and the chorus Orféon Donostiarra, conducted by Lawrence Foster, features a star-studded cast that includes José van Dam, Gabriel Bacquier, Nicolai Gedda, Brigitte Fassbaender, and Barbara Hendricks. The performance and production values for the release are exceptionally high and make a compelling case for the opera. Foster could have paced the opera's conclusion more broadly and expressively, but otherwise his reading is fully engaging. Enescu writes beautifully for the voice, and the entire large cast sings with gorgeous tone and deep conviction. Van Dam is overwhelming in the title role; he is on-stage for virtually all of the second, third, and fourth acts, and he ages convincingly from an impetuous youth to an old man. His portrayal of the troubled protagonist is warmly compassionate, and his voice is rich and searingly powerful; he has all the charisma required to pull off a memorable depiction of one of history's most famous archetypes. Most of the other roles are relatively brief, but Barbara Hendricks and Marjana Lipovsek are standouts as a sympathetic Antigone and a maniacal Sphinx. EMI's sound is full, clean, and enveloping, with excellent balance. On the basis of this exemplary recording, Oedipe clearly has the musical and dramatic values to merit serious consideration for revival by adventurous companies, and exploration by fans of modern opera.© TiVo

There hasn't exactly been a flood of recordings marking the centenary of Debussy's death in 1918, but here's a fitting observance from Pablo Heras-Casado, featuring a Philharmonia Orchestra that's absolutely at the top of its game and able to follow the Spanish conductor through his low-volume but intense Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. The program is an intelligent one for general listeners, pairing distinctive readings of two standards with the more unusual Fragments Symphoniques from Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien (1912), extracts from a five-hour set of incidental music for a play by Gabriele d'Annunzio. This work, perhaps because it was partially orchestrated by Debussy's friend André Caplet and thus violates the myth of the solitary genius, is not much played, but it has dramatic ideas not found elsewhere in Debussy's output and is as close as he came to an instrumental counterpart to Pélleas et Mélisande. Sample Heras-Casado's masterly way with the opening of La Mer: he gives himself room to develop the movement and to reveal small details while remaining true to the majesty of the subject. This album makes a fine place for the general listener to start with Debussy, containing his two most famous orchestral works plus a hint of what else is out there. The booklet for the CD version, with footnoted (and interestingly footnoted, at that) text by Denis Herlin, is a fine slice of Debussy's world, and the sound from London's Henry Wood Hall, a place the musicians know well, is top-notch. There is plenty of competition out there when it comes to the big Debussy works, but this is an excellent choice. © TiVo