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Spontini: La vestale

Les Talens Lyriques

Classical - Released May 12, 2023 | Bru Zane

Hi-Res Booklet
Gaspare's Spontini's French-language La Vestale is probably the most often heard of his operas, but that is not saying much; the work was sung by Maria Callas in the 1950s, but performances are sparse. Here, it is revived in period style by Les Talens Lyriques and conductor Christophe Rousset, and a very good case is made for further attention. The story is action-packed; Julia, in the absence of her lover, General Licinius, becomes una Vestale, a Vestal Virgin and guards a sacred flame. When Licinius returns to town, the flame goes out, and Julia is sentenced to be buried alive. Licinius rallies his troops, vowing to kidnap Julia, and the flame is reignited later by a lightning strike. Spontini's orchestration of this tale is Beethovenian in its dimensions, and despite the difficulties of natural horns, it is exciting to hear this opera as Napoleon (thought to be the model for Licinius) and Josephine (who backed the opera) heard it. The singers are not Callas-level, but throughout, and especially in the choruses, there is a commitment to the text and its meaning that is rare in any kind of recording. Marina Rebeka, in the role of Julia, is fully involved in the character's plight, and the smoky-voiced Aude Extrémo as La Grande Vestale is worth the price of admission on her own. The singers are aided by clear, spacious studio sound engineering from the early opera specialist label Palazzetto Bru Zane, whose high standards are perhaps even exceeded here. © James Manheim /TiVo

Ici & là, en concert au Dôme de Paris (Live, 2022)

Alain Souchon

French Music - Released November 11, 2022 | Parlophone (France)

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Ses plus grandes chansons

Jean Ferrat

French Music - Released February 28, 2020 | Universal Music Division Barclay

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Liszt: Harmonies poétiques et religieuses

Saskia Giorgini

Solo Piano - Released December 11, 2021 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet
Introspective music of ravishing beauty. After two song albums together with Ian Bostridge, pianist Saskia Giorgini presents Franz Liszt’s Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. Liszt is often seen as a showman, but much of his music reveals his introspective, searching nature. This is demonstrated above all in Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, one of his most ambitious, contemplative and enigmatic compositions, inspired by Lamartine’s eponymous poetry, Liszt’s Roman Catholic faith as well as the 1848-1849 revolutions. To Giorgini, “this music is deeply humane and sincere, tender, but also full of the most sorrowful, violent, painful moments that Liszt ever put into music”. Its ten movements constitute a quest for the deeper meaning of human existence, clothed in music of ravishing beauty. Saskia Giorgini is one of the most promising pianists of her generation, who has won several competitions and is hailed for her technical command and the beauty and poetry of her sound. © Pentatone
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Liszt : Harmonies poétiques et religieuses

Brigitte Engerer

Chamber Music - Released November 9, 2010 | Mirare

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Super Best (Remastered)

Nana Mouskouri

World - Released November 15, 2011 | Hot Dice

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Autorisation de délirer

Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine

French Music - Released January 1, 1979 | Columbia

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Hymne à la môme

Edith Piaf

French Music - Released September 24, 2012 | Parlophone (France)

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Bercy 95

Johnny Hallyday

French Music - Released December 2, 2022 | Universal Music Division Mercury Records

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L'album de sa vie - 50 titres

Eddy Mitchell

French Music - Released October 13, 2023 | Universal Music Division Barclay

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Chez Toots

Toots Thielemans

Jazz - Released April 20, 1998 | Private Music

On this unusual CD, the remarkable harmonica player Toots Thielemans explores a variety of mostly French melodies. The music is often nostalgic and wistful but generally swinging, with enough different tempos to hold one's interest throughout. The oddest aspect of the set is that there is an overdubbed vocal apiece by Diana Krall ("La Vie en Rose"), Dianne Reeves, Johnny Mathis, Shirley Horn, and a promising newcomer known here only as Chip; Krall, Reeves, and Chip sing in French. Thielemans plays beautifully throughout the relaxed date, which includes "I Wish You Love," "The Windmills of Your Mind," "Once Upon a Summertime," and "Moulin Rouge." Easily recommended.© Scott Yanow /TiVo
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Le Siège de Corinthe (Intégrale)

Lorenzo Regazzo

Opera - Released June 3, 2013 | Naxos

Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica
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Guerre et pets

Jacques Dutronc

French Music - Released December 18, 1980 | Sony Music Entertainment

André Popp - La musique m'aime

André Popp

French Music - Released October 25, 2019 | Universal Music Division Mercury Records

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Les Premières Années

Céline Dion

French Artists - Released September 17, 1984 | Columbia

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Liszt : Harmonies poétiques et religieuses, Sonate en si mineur

François-Frédéric Guy

Classical - Released March 17, 2011 | Zig-Zag Territoires

For the 200th anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt, pianist François-Frédéric Guy has recorded an impressive album of the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses and the Sonata in B minor, a presentation that covers two CDs and demonstrates both the composer's inexhaustible imagination and the performer's commitment to the music. Because Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is predominantly defined by its meditative quality and serene moods, it contains some of Liszt's most sustained and shimmering music, and the expressive control required to play at a soft level for most of the work is fully evident in Guy's rapt and gentle performance. The sonata, on the other hand, is a dramatic counterweight to the soothing lyricism of Harmonies, and it's dynamic energy is compressed in its half-hour duration, in contrast to the nearly 100 minutes it takes to play the first work. After hearing Guy's quiet interpretation of Harmonies, his performance of the sonata is almost startling in its power and passion. Guy unleashes the kinetic energy that had been held in reserve and rises to the demands of this tempestuous work. The reproduction is clear and quite resonant, which is fine in the sonata, but tends toward blurred textures in Harmonies without some careful volume adjustment.© TiVo
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France 1789 : Révolte d'un sans-culotte & d'un royaliste

Les Lunaisiens

Classical - Released May 12, 2011 | Alpha Classics

Booklet Distinctions 4 étoiles Classica
Although it is an uncanny reflector of social change, classical music often seems to be restricted to what happens in between periods of political instability. From time to time music and song of war and revolution have been compiled, but France 1789, from the innovative Alpha label, is probably the first in attempting to depict the musical worlds of each of the two sides in a conflict. Subtitled "Revolt in the music of a sans-culotte [the lower-class revolutionary laborers who wore only ordinary long pants, not silk breeches] and of a royalist," the album presents the ordinary music of the streets for the two groups as the French Revolution took hold. One interesting thing is that the group Les Lunaisiens and its leaders Arnaud Marzorati and Jean-François Novelli dig up unusual pieces to represent both groups; the royalists' pieces are not grand operatic selections but intimate chamber works, many of them sacred. The sans-culottes and the royalists alternate roughly in pairs. Both are sung by the same performers, and the revolutionary songs are distinguished not only by their texts, but by the manner of singing and by the rougher-timbred instruments (such as the serpent) employed. There's no claim that the performances are historically derived from iconography or writings, but the sound is convincing and the overall depth of the attempt to imagine music as it existed on the streets and in the besieged rooms of the aristocracy is impressive. The best is saved for last: La Marseillaise, the eventual hymn of the revolution, is paired with a "Contre-Marseillaise" issued by a conservative Catholic abbott. In addition to its sheer listenability, this album is strongly recommended to anyone studying the culture of the Revolutionary era or attempting to create fictional or dramatic representations of it.© TiVo
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Liszt: Harmonies poétiques et religieuses III, S. 173

Adam Tendler

Classical - Released October 1, 2021 | Steinway and Sons

Hi-Res Booklet
Performed here by pianists Jenny Lin and Adam Tendler, Liszt’s rarely heard Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is a sublime example of Liszt’s early compositions. Lin and Tendler alternate movements of this monumental piano cycle. “Few performers are willing to take on not only its daunting scale but also its grueling restraint - a cohesion held together in a delicate tension of wild Romanticism and controlled transparency. Mr. Tendler and Ms. Lin aren’t typically associated with Liszt, or 19th century music at all. But, to them, that’s part of the fun. It didn’t take long for them to see just how modern Harmonies poetiques et religieuses can be” (The New York Times) © Steinway and Sons
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XXV

Tryo

French Music - Released January 24, 2020 | Tryo

Hi-Res Booklet