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La flûte enchantée

Sigiswald Kuijken

Opera - Released March 9, 2005 | Brilliant Classics

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There is magic in this Die Zauberflöte -- the warmly glowing intonation of La Petite Bande, the pure Pamina of Suzie LeBlanc, the idealized Sorastro of Cornelius Hauptmann, the ardent Tamino of Christoph Genz, the robust Papageno of Stephan Genz, the lovely Papagna of Marie Kuijken, the deeply knowing conducting of Sigiswald Kuijken, even the corny thundercrashes -- but there is also one huge drawback -- the spoken dialogue. The amount of spoken dialogue included has always been a crucial issue for recordings of Die Zauberflöte -- too little and the story is all but incomprehensible, too much and listeners may grow restless waiting for the characters to stop speaking to each other in German, especially if they themselves don't speak German. For the completists and German speakers, Kuijken has included all the spoken dialogue. While this has its charms -- Genz's Papageno's fright is quite convincing -- the dialogue stops the music dead in its tracks every three to five minutes. Depending on the listener, this will either delightfully enhance or fatally detract from what is otherwise a thoroughly beguiling Die Zauberflöte. Amati's sound is deep and clear, but a little reverberant and very live.© TiVo
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Quatuor Zaïde: Amadeus

Quatuor Zaïde

Chamber Music - Released April 12, 2019 | NoMadMusic

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
A is for “Amadeus,” and a recording which marks a return to the source for Quatuor Zaïde, who dedicate their fourth collection to the genius Austrian composer. Z is for Zaïde, a “Singspiel” by Mozart in the style of Die Zauberflöte, which historical transcription for string quartet is a world premiere! Paired with the Quartet in G Major, No. 14, K. 387, this miniature version of one of the most famous operas repeatedly casts each instrument of the quartet in a multitude of lyric roles, celebrating the eternal dialogue between singing and playing. © Nomadmusic
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La flûte enchantée

Herbert von Karajan

Stories and Nursery Rhymes - Released November 6, 2013 | Didier Jeunesse

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Beethoven: Complete Works for Cello and Piano (Live)

Marc Coppey

Chamber Music - Released April 1, 2018 | audite Musikproduktion

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Following two albums dedicated to Brahms’ sonatas and Russian sonatas released in 2008 under Aeon, Marc Coppey and Peter Laul present a Beethoven piece for cello and piano. Recorded live in 2017 in the marvellous baroque treasure that is the Small Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, this new complete collection features the five sonatas and three series of variations on themes by Handel and Mozart. This corpus for cello and piano by Beethoven provides a striking shortcut through the three periods (formerly known as his three “styles”) of his musical evolution and it ushers in a long line of compositions for cello that only just started emancipating themselves from the continuo to which they were still restricted at the end of the 18th century. Used to emphasise the piano in the first two sonatas, the cello fully expresses itself in the third sonata, in which the dialogue establishes itself equitably and becomes genuinely virtuosic and soloist in the last two sonatas of the Op. 102. The perspective here is from cellist Marc Coppey, winner of the Leipzig Bach Competition at just eighteen years of age, and supported for his debut by Yehudi Menuhin. An international soloist and a professor at the Paris Conservatory, he teams up with pianist Peter Laul, a highly sought-after chamber musician trained at the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he now teaches, after winning prizes at the Bremen International Competition (1995, 1997) and the Moscow Scriabin piano competition (2000). Both musicians also frequently play in a trio with Russian violinist Liana Gourdjia. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Beethoven: Complete Sonatas and Variations for Cello and Piano

Gary Hoffman

Chamber Music - Released September 29, 2023 | La Dolce Volta

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Die Zauberflöte / The Magic Flute

Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra

Classical - Released March 3, 2023 | Profil

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Ludwig van Beethoven: The Complete Works for Cello and Piano

Pablo Casals

Chamber Music - Released May 1, 2017 | Praga Digitals

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Ludwig van Beethoven : Complete Works for Violoncello and Piano

Jean-Guihen Queyras

Duets - Released September 22, 2014 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Choc de Classica - Choc Classica de l'année
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Beethoven: Complete Works for Fortepiano and Violoncello

Nicolas Altstaedt

Classical - Released April 24, 2020 | Alpha Classics

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Beethoven’s output for fortepiano and violoncello is fascinating because it covers every period of his career, from early to late, with references to Bach in Op. 69 and Op. 102 No. 2 and an especially innovative and amazingly modern musical language. For this complete set, which includes the Variations on a theme from Handel’s "Judas Maccabaeus" and the Variations on a theme from Mozart’s "Die Zauberflöte", Nicolas Altstaedt was keen to record on an instrument with gut strings, a Guadagnini from Piacenza dated 1749, and using a Classical bow. Alexander Lonquich, his faithful recital partner – they been inseparable companions since the day Altstaedt replaced his teacher Boris Pergamenschikow for a concert of Beethoven sonatas with Lonquich at the Beethovenfest in Bonn in 2004 – here plays a Graf fortepiano of 1826. The combination of these instruments produces a finely balanced sound and exceptional tone colours. This recording is Nicolas Altstaedt’s first for Alpha as a soloist. Others will follow, in very different genres, for eclecticism is the hallmark of this musician, among the most promising of the new generation. © Alpha Classics
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La Flûte Enchantée

Hervé Niquet

Classical - Released April 23, 2021 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Beethoven : Sonates pour violoncelles n°1 & 3

Anne Gastinel, François-Frédéric Guy

Classical - Released November 16, 2004 | naïve classique

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Atys

Christophe Rousset

Opera - Released January 5, 2024 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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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
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Berlioz: Les nuits d'été, Op. 7, H 81b - Ravel: Shéhérazade, M. 41 - Saint-Saëns: Mélodies persanes, Op. 26

Marie-Nicole Lemieux

Classical - Released September 29, 2023 | Warner Classics

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This is a nicely programmed album consisting of French song cycles spaced several decades apart from the 19th and early 20th centuries. One of them, the Mélodies Persanes ("Persian Songs") of Saint-Saëns, is not a common item; with its bouncy text-setting, nobody would compare it to the deep Eastern influences woven into various Ravel works, but then, Ravel was inspired to execute those by listening to Saint-Saëns. In Berlioz's Les nuits d'été and Ravel's Shéhérazade, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux has plenty of competition, but there is less for the Saint-Saëns. Another attraction is the work of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under conductor Kazumi Yamada, neither a household name. The group is velvety smooth in the Berlioz cycle, with quiet and perfectly controlled string sound throughout. The strings match the voice of Lemieux beautifully; both have a luxuriance that fits the extravagantly Romantic texts of the Berlioz. So, everything is in place here, and listeners' reactions to the whole are likely to come down to their feelings about Lemieux's voice itself. It has a rapid, confident vibrato that is remarkably pitch-accurate as it moves up and down within her range. To these ears, it is beautiful. It also doesn't vary much according to the text; the Saint-Saëns songs and Ravel's Asie, which are intended to evoke exotic melodic traits, sound much like the Berlioz. A bit of sampling will likely determine one's enjoyment of the album in general, and there are certainly many things to like here.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Camille Saint-Saëns: Phryné

Hervé Niquet

Opera - Released February 11, 2022 | Bru Zane

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Everyone knows Camille Saint-Saëns has a great sense of humour thanks to his Carnaval des Animaux in which no one escapes ridicule, not even him. Now the Palazzetto Bru Zane Foundation and Hervé Niquet have unearthed Phryné, a forgotten comic opera from 1893 enriched with recitatives composed by André Messager three years later.Received with immense and lasting success in its time, this brilliant work eventually fell into the abyss, never to be seen again. Fortunately, fans of Saint-Saëns made great efforts to rediscover his works on the centenary of his death in 2021. Phryné captures the "Grecomania" that was prevalent in all the arts in France at this time, especially in Offenbach’s music and even in architecture (just think of the beautiful Parisian district of New Athens in the 9th arrondissement). Ironically, and perhaps a little cheekily, Saint-Saens confessed that he was “working on this little piece with infinite pleasure” and was infatuated with this courtesan musician who had served as a model for the sculptor Praxitele.Always keen to discover a forgotten repertoire, Hervé Niquet brought together a few singers, Florie Valiquette, Cyrille Dubois, Anaïs Constans and Thomas Dolié, to breathe some life back into Phryné with his Concert Spirituel, with the aim of producing a concert version to be performed in the Opéra de Rouen Normandie in 2021. Though Lucien Augé’s libretto may seem tasteless today with its hefty dose of misogyny, Saint-Saens’ music is simply delicious, with a succession of arias and ensembles. This modest and charming opera-comedy, which Charles Gounod so enjoyed, offers a less serious and less academic take of a composer that well and truly deserves to be rediscovered. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Maurice Yvain: Yes!

Les Frivolités Parisiennes

Classical - Released March 22, 2024 | Alpha Classics

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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
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Ravel: Shéhérazade - Berlioz: Les Nuits d'été

Sir John Barbirolli

Classical - Released February 22, 2019 | Warner Classics

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Berlioz: Les Nuits d'été & Ravel: Shéhérazade by Régine Crespin

Régine Crespin

Classical - Released May 16, 2023 | Alexandre Bak - Classical Music Reference Recording

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Nuit d'étoiles (Mélodies françaises de Fauré, Debussy, Poulenc)

Véronique Gens

Classical - Released February 1, 2000 | Warner Classics

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Charpentier: Médée

Les Arts Florissants

Opera - Released August 20, 1984 | harmonia mundi