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

The Palazetto Bru Zane, the centre for French Romantic music in Venice, has an uncanny ability to rouse our curiosity for rare musical offerings. For each discographic release, the institution makes a point of indulging the listener, presenting them with only the very best: from the casting to the sound recording, not to mention the cleverly constructed programmes and the detailed illustrated booklets, everything is flawlessly produced. They essentially offer a first-class journey to the land of Romantic music. With Les Nuits de Paris, the institute once again proves it knows what it’s doing. At the helm, François-Xavier Roth and his ensemble Les Siècles take us on a dizzying tour of French society during the Belle-Epoque. At the time, the Parisian public routinely frequented dance venues—the upper classes went to the opera whilst the lower classes turned to cabarets, music halls and other “café-concerts”. Links were made between the profane and the sacred, the stylish and the mainstream. This cheerful disc sheds light on this entire dancing tradition. Alongside the great composers of the period (Massenet, Delibes and Saint-Saëns), the programme introduces other figures who were well-known in their time but have been somewhat forgotten today: Ernest Guiraud, Victorin Joncières and Ambroise Thomas. A special mention must go to Jeanne Danglas, one of the rare female composers to have been able to escape the patriarchal grip of the period.François Xavier Roth and his orchestra fully embrace the retro charm of these compositions, which might have been considered a little absurd if it weren’t for their radiantly joyful and deliciously playful performance. This is a wonderful journey through time. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

The Orchestre Divertimento and its conductor, Zahia Ziouani, often juxtapose European repertory with music from other parts of the world. Ziouani, who is of Algerian background, has a particular interest in the music of that country. She could not have found a composer whose works were more congenial to such a project than Camille Saint-Saëns, who visited Algeria no fewer than 18 times and composed a Suite algérienne, Op. 60, that is heard here, broken up and interspersed with Arabic music. What makes Ziouani's project unique is that there are not two types of music here but three. Many of the Saint-Saëns works are preceded by improvisations in the classical Arabic idiom, on oud, qanun, a traditional viol, derbouka, and the riqq drum. These are quite a musical distance from Saint-Saëns, but Ziouani introduces contemporary Arabic songs, of a semi-popular nature, as an intermediate step. The sets are mostly in related tonalities. This is an ingenious idea that sheds light on both Saint-Saëns, on what he heard when he heard Algerian music, and on the nature of contemporary popular traditions that are rooted in the classical music of the world. The Saint-Saëns performances themselves are entirely creditable, and the album is well recorded at a couple of different locations. A unique release that makes one want to hear more from this distinctive ensemble. © James Manheim /TiVo

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

Jean-François Paillard and his orchestra were the key to the success of Erato Records, representing a certain idea of French music from the 1950s to the 1970s. This student of Igor Markevitch quickly stood out by forming the orchestra bearing his name and by dedicating himself to a then little-known branch of French music from Lully to Debussy. His rigidity with regard to the rise of historically informed baroque music (period instruments, tuning fork, playing mode) rendered his approach obsolete, even though it opened the door to this revival, at least as far as the considered repertoire is concerned. Among Jean-François Paillard’s many recordings, this one holds a special place because it represents one of his very rare and cautious forays into the repertoire written at the beginning of the twentieth century.Recorded in 1970, this is a very smooth and lively version of the Petite Suite written by a young Debussy still immersed in his stays in Russia with Madame von Meck, Tchaikovsky's benefactress, in a diaphanous orchestration by Henri Büsser.This enjoyment was increased tenfold by a reunion with the great harpist Lily Laskine playing one of her favourite works, the Danses pour harpe et orchestre à cordes that Debussy composed at the request of Pleyel as a display of its instruments. As for Épigraphes antiques, this is one of Debussy’s last works, composed in 1914 for piano four hands, with the idea of a future orchestration. It was the conductor Ernest Ansermet who fulfilled this wish in 1932 with his delicate orchestration, followed forty years later by this version for strings alone, due to the talent of the transcriber and performer Jean-François Paillard. © François Hudry/Qobuz

Download not available