Two great masters of Romantic piano, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt, inhabit the diverse landscapes of Un monde Fantastique (A Fantastic World). For his first album, released on Mirare, Jean-Baptiste Doulcet draws on the works of both composers and constructs a demanding programme in which each piece conjures up a rich assemblage of literary and mythological material. This syncretism produces a strong imagery that the young pianist, winner of the 2019 Marguerite-Long competition, arranges in a stunning way under his alert and precise fingers. The ‘Paraphrase sur la Valse de Faust’ takes up a famous theme from Gounod's opera, and could almost be considered a hidden fifth sister to the four Mephisto Waltzes, themselves drawn from the Faustian universe. The sonata ‘Après une lecture du Dante : Fantasia quasi sonata’  from the second volume of the Années de pèlerinage is one of the pianistic peaks of Liszt's catalogue. Doulcet sublimates the score inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy and offers us a radiant vision of a hell illuminated by a perfect execution and millimetric balancing of sounds. Schumann's works receive the same choice treatment: the ‘Liederkreis Op.39’ is a jewel of sweetness, a wonderful caress on the cheek. The eight pieces of the Kreisleriana cycle, Op.16 composed for Clara Wieck, the love of Schumann's life, are, like other Schumann works, a reflection of the composer’s two avatars: Eusebius, the melancholic dreamer, and Florestan, the fiery and passionate. Doulcet moves from one mood to another with disconcerting ease, preferring to rely on the fluidity of transitions rather than on the accentuation of contrasts.All too often, the Romantic piano - particularly in the case of virtuoso composers such as Schumann, Liszt and Chopin - has suffered from the temptation of excessive volume and rubato. Here, Doulcet skilfully avoids this trap and shows us that it is by maintaining a relative rigidity in tempo and nuance that these works display their highest expressive power. His own qualities as a composer undoubtedly play a part in this intelligent reading of the score. The album closes with three of his own compositions: Endymion, a tribute to his teachers, and two fascinating improvisations that bear witness to a colourful musical and intellectual personality. After having religiously listened to this disc, one comes away with the certainty that Jean-Baptiste Doulcet is a performer to be followed very closely in the years to come. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

Cinq-Mars is an 1877 opera by Charles Gounod, written a dozen years after his last big hit, Roméo et Juliette. It's based on a historical novel by Alfred de Vigny about the Marquis of Cinq-Mars, a nobleman who attempted to rally resistance to Cardinal Richelieu and in 1642 was executed for his pains. The work harks back to the tradition of French grand opera and was never very successful. It fell into a series of numbers at a time when audiences were getting a taste of a different way of doing things, not just from Germany, but from Verdi also. But it does contain numbers that show Gounod's undiminished melodic gift: sample the "Cavatine" of the Princess Marie Gonzaga, the linchpin of the wholly fictitious romantic subplot added by Gounod and his librettists. Marie is sung by Véronique Gens, who leads a cast of uniformly strong singers, and this live performance, with the Munich Radio Orchestra and Bavarian Radio Choir under the direction of Ulf Schirmer, has plenty of energy. The recording is available in a sumptuous hardback package with beautiful classic design; the event may not live up to the presentation, but the idea, as a counterweight to the instant reproducibility of art in the Internet age, is a good one.© TiVo

"This fantasy world is a program designed as a mirror, which is held up to our daily surroundings and where puzzling poetry abounds, creating a world simultaneously characterized by legends, lightness, and metaphysical depth too". Jean-Baptiste Doulcet pays tribute to the fantasy literature that pervades the Romantic repertoire by combining Schumann, Liszt, and his own composition inspired by a poem by John Keats, an open door to an uncertain and poetic language. © Mirare

Beyond the neglect of French Baroque music in general, it is a bit hard to understand why composer Pancrace Royer was almost completely unknown until Christophe Rousset came along to champion him, first in harpsichord music and now, with these suites of music drawn from operas, in orchestral music. In the 18th century, Royer was quite well known and admired among others by Rameau, whose music he helped along considerably. Royer certainly inhabited Rameau's stylistic world, but from the evidence here, his music is distinctive and merits the adjective "surprising" that Rousset has attached to it. It is colorful, given to unexpected turns of harmony, and vivid in its evocation of the exotic scenes of French opera. Sample the "Air pour les turcs" ("Air for the Turks") from Zaïde, reine de Grenade, with its crackling percussion. Royer challenged his orchestra with virtuoso ensemble writing in the likes of the "Premier et second tambourins" from Almasis, and Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques step up with precise, vigorous readings that one imagines would have made the composer overjoyed. The inclusion of two alternate versions for movements from Zaïde is also unusual and gives insight into the compositional thinking of the day. Essential for specialists and enthusiasts interested in the French Baroque, this album is a lot of fun for anyone, with only overdone church sound detracting from the overall effect. © James Manheim /TiVo

Recording Ravel's music on period instruments is the kind of thing that might raise a smile... until you realise just how much the production of instruments has changed in less than a hundred years: it's the return of catgut strings, skin drum heads, the French basson (and not the German system bassoon which is used across all the world's orchestras today), shaper tips, trumpets and trombones of French manufacture. At the head of his orchestra Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth gives a new, orthodox, historically-informed version of Ma Mère l’oye (complete ballet), the Tombeau de Couperin and Shéhérazade, the long-neglected "ouverture de féérie" [Fairy Overture] which is pure Ravel. This return to the roots is clearly easier and more straightforwardly authentic for this period of music history, because, unlike earlier works, we possess recordings which date back to the 1920s, and even earlier, which can tell us about the style, the colours, the phrasing and the tempo. But it isn't enough just to have all this historical information to hand to make something interesting. What makes this record thrilling is that all the musicians in the Siècles are excellent, and François-Xavier Roth is a talented artist himself, who knows this music inside out. At which point, his complete recording of Stravinsky's Firebird has already struck us with its quality. This rediscovery of Ravel resounds with clarity and finesse; it is a feast of well-defined timbres which cuts against the "beautiful sound" which prevails in orchestras around the world today. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Stéphane Denève has established himself as a versatile maestro with a highly varied repertoire, from concert fare to operas, but his recordings have revealed him to be a specialist in French orchestral music, notably in his coverage of works by Albert Roussel and Guillaume Connesson. This double hybrid SACD from Chandos offers Denève's interpretations of the orchestral works of Claude Debussy, and the lavishly detailed and expressive performances by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra show a conductor and an orchestra in complete sympathy with the music. Because the presentation by Chandos is first-rate from an audiophile perspective, with spectacular reproduction and close-up, credible presence, the listener is immersed in Debussy's dazzling colors from the opening of Images, and surrounded by fully dimensional sonorities throughout the album, which includes such other masterpieces of impressionist music as Jeux, Nocturnes, La Mer, Printemps, and Prélude à l'après-midi d'une faune. When the clarity of the notes, the richness of the timbres, and the depth of the orchestra's sound are appreciated altogether, it's truly a seductive experience, and Debussy's lush and atmospheric music achieves its potential in this impressive package. Indeed, it's difficult to pull away from these gorgeous performances, so prepare to listen to both SACDs in one long, leisurely sitting. It's that good.© TiVo

L'amour de loin (2000) is Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho's first opera, but the mastery of its memorably dramatic music demonstrates incontrovertibly that she is a born opera composer. The opera has had numerous international productions and in 2003 it received the Grawemeyer Award, the most prestigious international award for composition. Saariaho was inspired to write an opera after seeing the 1992 Salzburg Festival production of Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise, so it is not surprising that her first effort would be more concerned with introspection than with conventionally operatic drama. The French libretto, by Armin Maalouf, deals with twelfth century troubadour Jaufre Rudel, and the legend of his love for the Countess of Tripoli. Separated by thousands of miles, the two had an erotically charged but unconsummated relationship, which in the opera is sustained by messages carried between them by a Pilgrim. The poet finally makes the voyage to meet his love, only to die in her arms. For a work on such an intimate subject with such an understated dramatic profile, L'amour de loin feels like a very big opera. Saariaho is dealing with large emotions, and what it lacks in outward theatricality is more than made up for in the vividness and depth with which it probes the psychology of its characters. The orchestra and chorus are vehicles for making audible the lovers' states of mind, which are frequently roiling with conflict and anxiety, and the music is consequently turbulent, powerful, and often very loud. (It's closer in tone to Tristan and Isolde than to Pelléas et Mélisande, two tragedies of thwarted love that it resembles in some ways.) Saariaho's counterintuitive take on Maalouf's intensely inward libretto works brilliantly. The ravishing orchestral palette, deft blend of Medieval and contemporary musical traditions, and gorgeous choral and vocal writing make this is a work that seems destined to endure. Saariaho's text setting is exceptionally graceful and limber, and it's performed beautifully by the superlative singers on this recording. Mezzo-soprano Marie-Anne Todorovitch's shapely vocal interpretation invests the Pilgrim with so much nuanced individuality that the listener cannot help being drawn to the character. Her supple, infinitely colorful voice is responsive to the most subtle dramatic cues in the text and music; this is the kind of fully realized performance that opera composers dream of. The same can be said for soprano Ekaterina Lekhina and baritone Daniel Belcher as the lovers; the startling purity and focus of their voices, and the intensity and subtlety with which they inhabit their roles, make them absolutely compelling, both musically and dramatically. Kent Nagano leads Rundfunkchor Berlin and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchestra Berlin in a luminous reading of the richly variegated score. Harmonia Mundi's sound is pure, full, and warmly atmospheric. This outstanding performance of L'amour de loin should be of strong interest not only to fans of contemporary opera, but of new music in general, and to lovers of bel canto singing. Highly recommended. © TiVo

It is hard to shake the feeling that Alexandre Tharaud and Jean-Guihen Queyras are committing a radical crime of lèse-majesté here. However, this is soon forgotten after you hear the first bars of their new album. They are understandably enthralled with Marin Marais’ fabulous music, and have thus decided to put their own spin on it by transcribing it for their own instruments: a modern piano and cello.This joyful transgression is in keeping with the interpretations from the beginning of the last century, when Fritz Kreisler and his peers were not afraid to play—or even pastiche—the music they loved without any concern for historical accuracy. These two musicians, on the other hand, are ‘historically informed’. They’ve listened to Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Jordi Savall, Ton Koopman and Hopkinson Smith whilst recreating Marin Marais’ music in their own way, adapting it to instruments that would have been unknown to him.Under their nimble fingers, ‘Les Folies d’Espagne’ becomes a frantic dance, ‘Le Badinage’ sounds like something straight out of a Watteau painting, and ‘Opération de la taille’ is almost humorous. Here, Alexandre Tharaud and Jean-Guihen Queyras share their love for subtle and refined music, speaking to listeners on a level that goes beyond that of a mere reconstruction. © François Hudry/Qobuz