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Mio caro Händel
Simone Kermes
Classical - Released February 8, 2019 | Sony Classical
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While the German soprano follows in the footsteps of Cecilia Bartoli, her virtuoso voice separates her fans from the purists who prefer a less fanciful vocal-line. This long-awaited new album from Simone Kermes shows off her masterful voice in almost every register and there is no sign of the excessiveness for which she has previously been criticised. Typically referred to as a “Ba-rock” star, some people are irritated by her gestures and extreme theatrics during her concerts, but those mannerisms are long forgotten here in the absence of any images. The title of the album, “Mio caro Händel”, says a lot about the affinity Simone Kermes feels with the Saxon composer. She has selected his most popular pieces, such as Ombra mai fù(Largo of Love), Piangeró la sorte mia(I will lament my fate) and Lascia ch’io pianga(Let me weep), along with some much less well-known pieces, which are some of the most wonderful revelations and rare musical gems on the album. The singer recorded this testimony of love to Händel in Berlin’s famous Jesus-Christus-Kirche in 2018 accompanied by Amici Veneziani, an ensemble put together especially for her which mostly comprises of German musicians and is led by Russian violinist Boris Begelman. As a great traveller who went all over Europe, this captures Händel’s European spirit perfectly. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Maria Mater Meretrix
Anna Prohaska
Classical - Released April 14, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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By no means should you be expecting the "typical" productions we so often associate with the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja. Together with the soprano Anna Prohaska, she has developed a highly original programme which brings violin and vocals together. In this respect, while we were delighted to find a recording of the beautiful and all too rare Maria-Triptychon, which Frank Martin wrote in 1968 for Irmgard Seefried and her violinist husband Wolfgang Schneiderhan, we wonder whether it was really necessary to dismantle this polyptych whose three movements tell the story of the mother of Christ with perfect fluidity.It must be said that the entirety of this unusual album feels rather all over the place, very much like György Kurtág who unsurprisingly features in this curious inventory of a thousand years of music, from Hildegard von Bingen to the present day.We need to look elsewhere for the main theme and, more precisely, at the questioning of the two musicians around the subject of female emancipation and “the sensitive exploration of their common experiences as women evolving in the current music industry.” This quest for content, set to music around the figure of Mary, evokes a mixture of shimmering colours created by the Camerata de Berne orchestra, and depicts a journey through the ages and arias which incorporates so many of the contradictions of human nature. We highly recommend that you immerse yourself fully, and listen to these twenty tracks from beginning to end. This way you will be better able to appreciate this strangely fascinating patchwork, which feels like a work of art in its own right. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Céphale et Procris
Reinoud Van Mechelen
Classical - Released February 9, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Psyché
Christophe Rousset
Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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Cadmus & Hermione
Vincent Dumestre
Classical - Released May 1, 2021 | Château de Versailles Spectacles
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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
Gluck: Orphée et Eurydice, Wq. 30
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Classical - Released January 1, 1967 | Orfeo
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Louise Bertin: Fausto
Les Talens Lyriques
Classical - Released January 26, 2024 | Bru Zane
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The classical best-seller charts are unfamiliar environs for the Palazzetto Bru Zane label, which specializes in forgotten 19th century opera. However, this release achieved best-seller status in early 2024, and this is absolutely no surprise, for Louise Bertin's Fausto is a remarkable work. One wonders how long it will take programmers to present it in a cycle with Berlioz's and Gounod's versions of the Faust tale (and perhaps Arrigo Boito's); the work is colorful in the extreme and is sure to be a crowd-pleaser even though it closed after three performances in 1831 and was shelved for the next 190 years. Perhaps the opera mixed so many influences that audiences just did not know what to make of it. Bertin, who was 25 when the work had its premiere in Paris, wrote the libretto herself in Italian. It has all the trappings of Rossinian opera -- fortepiano-accompanied recitative, aria, scena, preghiera, cavatina, big multi-part finales ending with a fast stretta -- but the effect of the music is completely different, and the settings stand up to the weighty aspect of the material. It is as if Weber had written a Faust opera, sometimes even as if Beethoven had written one. The role of Faust is sung by a mezzo-soprano, which is how Bertin wrote it, although a tenor version also exists. This results in intriguing equal-status duets between Karine Deshayes as Fausto and Karina Gauvin as Margarita. Conductor Christophe Rousset catches the ambition and the drama; his ensemble Les Talens Lyriques uses historical instruments but wisely bulks up to an adequate size for the work. Palazzetto Bru Zane, as usual, does the opera justice sonically with a studio recording. This is a remarkable release, not only for lovers of 19th century opera or those interested in music by women, but for anyone.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Legros, haute-contre de Gluck
Reinoud Van Mechelen
Classical - Released September 22, 2023 | Alpha Classics
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Gesualdo: Madrigali, Libri quinto & sesto
Les Arts Florissants
Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released March 10, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Gramophone: Recording of the Month
The madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo were new territory for Les Arts Florissants, a group that specializes mostly in French Baroque opera, but the cycle, which concludes with this double album featuring the composer's tortured fifth and sixth books, has been consistently strong and has brought many new insights; the album reached the top levels of classical sales charts in early 2023. Gesualdo and his style have been used in narratives that don't necessarily fit the actual music. For Stravinsky and his contemporaries, the dissonance-loving Gesualdo was a proto-modernist, but Les Arts Florissants leader (and tenor voice) Paul Agnew points out that the trends in his music were also present in that of other composers of the Mannerist late 16th century. It is conventional to connect the experiments in Gesualdo's music to the facts of his life: he caught his wife and her lover in flagrante, murdered them both, beat the rap at trial, and spent the rest of his life in seclusion. Agnew doesn't buy this connection, either, and his interpretations avoid the emotional extremes present in other performances. At the most intense moments, he may steer the singers just a bit toward spoken inflections, but mostly his dissonant harmonies are precise and cutting. The sound is a bit swallowed up in the Philharmonie de Paris, but the laconic statements of Gesualdo's chosen texts are clear. A fine conclusion to a cycle of music by a composer who warranted a fresh look.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Vivaldi: Le quattro stagioni
Rinaldo Alessandrini
Classical - Released January 14, 2003 | naïve
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Rameau: Pygmalion & Les Fêtes de Polymnie
Christophe Rousset
Classical - Released September 1, 2017 | Aparté
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Gramophone: Recording of the Month -
Choc de Classica -
5 Sterne Fono Forum Jazz
Christophe Rousset and the Talens Lyriques bring us to the stage of the Royal Academy of Music where Pygmalion, an act of ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau inspired by an episode of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, was created in 1748. Love, showing empathy for Pygmalion’s despair of loving a statue, invigorates the sculpted woman who immediately falls in love with her creator. Very suggestive, the music of this tender and mischievous ballet deploys the grace of 18th century dances. Like Ovid’s Love, Christophe Rousset instils life in this score, one of Rameau’s greatest successes in his day, and offers us, thanks to his sense of drama and his impeccable leadership, a new and essential reading of this ballet. © Aparté
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Mozart
Juan Diego Flórez
Opera Extracts - Released October 6, 2017 | Sony Classical
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Choc de Classica
Juan Diego Flórez is undeniably among the most charismatic of the early 21st century crop of opera stars, and it's understandable that Sony wanted to snap up the charismatic Peruvian tenor for recital discs. Moreover, Mozart is a perennial program for such events. Flórez, however, admits up front that he hasn't had much experience with Mozart, and this is a rather offbeat release that depicts Mozart in a heroic mode. Flórez, to his credit, understands that this is where the strength of his voice lies, and he populates the album mostly with big songs of kings and emperors. These pieces from Idomeneo, La clemenza di Tito, and Il re pastore aren't heard so much, and you could sample the way the music starts with a bang in "Fuor del mar" from Idomeneo to hear the tenor in his comfort zone. The news is less good as he bulls through "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön," from Die Zauberflöte, and a certain aural fatigue sets in after a period of time listening to the limited range of vocal timbres on offer. Then again, he gets sensitive support from the Orchestra La Scintilla under Riccardo Minasi, and the final concert aria, Misero! O sogno, K. 431, both fits into Flórez's wheelhouse and isn't a terribly common item. The bottom line is that for Flórez fans this will be a satisfying outing, but those looking for a basic collection of Mozart arias might try elsewhere.© TiVo
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Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice
René Jacobs
Classical - Released September 28, 2001 | harmonia mundi
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Storie di Napoli
Barbara Heindlmeier
Classical - Released January 7, 2022 | audite Musikproduktion
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"Storie di Napoli" is la festa musicale's third album for audite, presenting an innovative approach towards the varied and expressive Neapolitan baroque repertoire. Sensual arias and virtuoso concertos by composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Francesco Mancini and Nicola Fiorenza are collaged into a sonic-narrative telling Naples' best stories from the baroque heyday of what was then Europe's third-largest metropolis. These include an encounter with the seductive siren Parthenope who, according to mythology, founded the city; a visit to Naples' multi-layered underworld with surprising twists and turns; and the exuberant atmosphere of typical Neapolitan street life, full of festivities and joie de vivre. Together with the young and promising soprano Maria Ladurner and under the direction of the renowned recorder player Barbara Heindlmeier, who is known for innovative concepts, la festa musicale breaks new ground with this project. On occasion the movements of the concertos are broken up, weaving arias amongst them. This allows a new overarching plot line to be told, skilfully capturing the manifold facets of this fascinating city. The North German baroque ensemble la festa musicale stands for excellent artistic standards, which are reflected in creative, cross-disciplinary concert formats and top-class co-operation projects. Alongside well-known works, ""Storie di Napoli" also features rarely-heard discoveries and a premiere recording of the aria "Nel mio petto" (from Il ritorno d'Ulisse) by Giuseppe Porsile. The richness of colour, the emotional density and the fast-moving contrasts of this repertoire are reflected by the ensemble using variable instrumentation as well as - entirely in keeping with the baroque art of ornamentation and improvisation - adding their own contributions, such as in the lively Tarantella napoletana alla festa musicale. © Audite
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Monteverdi : Madrigali (Cremona), Vol. 1
Paul Agnew
Classical - Released May 11, 2015 | Les Arts Florissants
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5 de Diapason -
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Le lac des cygnes
Natalie Dessay
Stories and Nursery Rhymes - Released October 18, 2017 | Didier Jeunesse
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Haydn : L'Impatiente
Julien Chauvin
Classical - Released October 4, 2019 | Aparté
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5 de Diapason
The Haydn series continues with the Paris Symphony No. 87. Julien Chauvin and his orchestra keep shaking us up with historical instruments listening to Haydn’s works and several other forgotten scores from the same period. All of them were commissioned for the Concert de la Loge Olympique - ancestor and model for Julien Chauvin and his musicians – and all of them sank into oblivion during the 19th century, except for Haydn’s symphonies. The record offers an opportunity to experience some rare works of Grétry, Lemoyne and Ragué, and to revive the success that they once knew. © Aparté
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Il gioco della cieca. Madrigali, Canzoni & Villanelle per cantare, et sonare
Concerto di Margherita
Classical - Released February 4, 2022 | Arcana
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A young ensemble of instrumentalists and singers revives the precious historical practice of singers accompanying themselves (already brought back into currency by the soloist Vivabiancaluna Biffi), thus producing a wholly new sound in music usually assigned to unaccompanied voices. With Concerto di Margherita, self-accompanied singing becomes "collective" for the first time in our era, and is amplified in a shared gesture in which all the members of the group – playing and singing together with extraordinary coordination – produce a sonority unprecedented in this repertory. Created at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, the group (which is named after the Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga) performs as a consort of five voices, theorbo, harp, viola da gamba, guitar and lutes, inspired by the "Concerto delle dame" of Ferrara. The recording debut of Concerto di Margherita presents arrangements of a wide range of instrumental and vocal works (madrigals, villanellas and canzonas), drawing on music by De Wert, Gastoldi, Monteverdi and the "blind man’s buff" scene from Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (1580). © Arcana
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No(s) Dames
Théophile Alexandre
Opera - Released January 21, 2022 | NoMadMusic
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To women the musical direction, to man the agonies of love... By reversing the roles, the countertenor Théophile Aexandre and the Quatuor Zaïde sign a singular and troubling genderless reinvention of diva's arias: a universal tribute to opera's heroines, celebrating for the first time the beauty of these masterpieces beyond their gender setreotypes. © Nomadmusic
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Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice - 1762 Edition with 1774 Paris Revisions
Teresa Stich-Randall
Opera - Released December 31, 2021 | Vanguard Classics
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