Your basket is empty

Categories:
Narrow my search:

Results 1 to 20 out of a total of 3636

Offenbach, J.: Piano Music, Vol. I

Marco Sollini

Classical - Released January 1, 2003 | CPO

Download not available
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99

Reflet

Sandrine Piau

Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
In a world of "singles," pursued even by classical music labels nowadays, here is a whole album that makes up a single, sublime musical utterance. Reflet is a follow-up, similarly concerned with light effects, to soprano Sandrine Piau's German-language Clair-Obscur of a few years back. The German songs might have been a bigger stretch for Piau than the French material here, but Reflet has possibly an even more sublime coherence. One feels that every note is almost foreordained as the program opens with classic orchestral songs from Berlioz, Henri Duparc, and the less common Charles Koechlin, proceeding into darker, more mysterious realms with Ravel's Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, and ending with the youthful ebullience of Britten's Quatre chansons françaises. An illustration of how carefully calibrated everything is here comes with two Debussy pieces, Clair de lune and "Pour remercier la pluie" (from the Six Épigraphes Antiques), arranged for orchestra from other media. These serve as entr'actes between the sections of Piau's program, and they should by all rights have been annoying: aren't there enough genuine orchestral pieces that could have filled the bill? But just listen. These fit into the patterns that run through the whole album, and they make perfect sense, just like everything else. Piau's voice is delicate, soaring, and richly beautiful; one of the miracles of the current scene is its durability and versatility. Her support from conductor Jean-François Verdier, leading the Victor Hugo Orchestra, is confidently smooth, never intruding on the spell Piau weaves. A magnificent orchestral song recital that made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$25.29
CD$21.89

VIXI Tour XVII

Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine

French Music - Released April 1, 2016 | Columbia

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$17.49
CD$13.99

Poulenc: La Voix humaine, Fiançailles pour rire

Julie Cherrier-Hoffmann

Opera - Released September 22, 2023 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet
Francis Poulenc's late opera La voix humaine (1958) seems ideally suited to the age of cellular telephony, and indeed, it is showing signs of revival with several new productions. This 2023 recording by soprano Julie Cherrier-Hoffmann and the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice di Venezia should contribute to the trend. La voix humaine is an operatic monodrama, but of a modern kind; the single character is a woman, simply named Elle (She), talking on the phone, being dumped by her boyfriend, and hinting at suicide. The text was written by Jean Cocteau in 1930, when dropped phone calls were no doubt common, but it works perfectly in a contemporary setting; the phone conversation is interrupted by panicky "Allô allô" interjections. Poulenc's musical language for dealing with this text is remarkable, and it is not like that in any of his other compositions. The singer is unaccompanied when she is directly addressing her hearer, while the passages in which she narrates events are accompanied by the orchestra. This creates an uncanny impression of an actual phone conversation. Poulenc's harmonic language here is quite modern in comparison to his other works, not quite atonal but shorn of the popular tinge present in so much of his work. Cherrier-Hoffmann's performance is appropriately stressed out, and she is shown in the graphics with her hands splayed across a window as if trapped. Conductor Frédéric Chaslin emphasizes the orchestra's big, operatic sound, and this works; the engineering makes no attempt to disguise the opera house acoustic. Chaslin also contributes orchestrations of smaller Poulenc voice-and-piano works; these frame the opera and return the listener to the usual Poulenc world. This is an unusually satisfying Poulenc release and a fine performance of a work whose reputation is on the way up.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$17.49
CD$13.99

Offenbach: Orchestral Works

Neeme Järvi

Symphonies - Released November 1, 2015 | Chandos

Hi-Res Booklet
From
CD$6.91

Saint-Saëns : Le Carnaval des animaux - Concerto pour piano No. 2 - Havanaise, Le rouet d'Omphale - Danse macabre... (Diapason n°610)

Igor Markevitch

Classical - Released October 28, 2011 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
From
CD$21.49

Offenbach: Les Contes d'Hoffmann

André Cluytens

Classical - Released January 1, 1965 | Warner Classics

Booklet
From
HI-RES$31.79
CD$24.59

Offenbach: Le voyage dans la lune

Pierre Dumoussaud

Classical - Released May 27, 2022 | Bru Zane

Hi-Res Booklet
Jules Verne was the inspiration for Offenbach’s opéra-féerie, premiered in 1875. The Parisian craze for this type of musical extravaganza stemmed from its impressive stage effects: for Le Voyage dans la Lune, two ballets and some twenty sets took the audience from the Earth to the Moon, successively recreating the Paris Observatory, a working blast furnace and the crater of an erupting volcano. The piece is studded with zany characters and imaginary places: a lunar landscape, a glass palace, mother-of-pearl galleries, etc. The producers even borrowed a dromedary and an ostrich from the zoo at the Jardin d’Acclimatation! To accompany this theatrical display, Offenbach composed a series of colourful, picturesque hit numbers, wittily and energetically performed here by a team of enthusiastic soloists. The Chœur et Orchestre National Montpellier Occitanie are placed under the subtle and precise direction of Pierre Dumoussaud. © Bru Zane
From
HI-RES$12.24$17.49(30%)
CD$9.79$13.99(30%)

Debussy, Stravinsky : Piano à quatre mains

Geister Duo

Chamber Music - Released April 7, 2023 | Mirare

Hi-Res Booklet
Just over a year after releasing their first CD for Mirare (which we proudly awarded a Qobuzissime!), the Geister Duo is back to present us with its little brother: an album dedicated to the modernisms of the 1900s and two of its most illustrious representatives, Debussy and Stravinsky. Musically, the end of the 20th century was marred by departures and farewells, particularly to the late Romantics and post-Wagnerism. The journey towards new musical horizons, tonalities and modern forms had begun. It was during this time that a trio of talented composers joined forces. Debussy published his Six Epigraphes antiques in 1915, but their beginnings date back to 1900 when his close friend Pierre Louÿs commissioned him to write music for his Chansons de Bilitis. The six titles describe, in a poetic and ethereal fashion, a musical antiquity similar to that of Pelléas and Mélisande. Maurice Ravel was in the audience during the first performance of Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune in 1894. This audience, including a captivated young Ravel, were left with nothing but high praise for Debussy. Ravel made it his duty to create a transcription that would perfectly “orchestrate” the piano four hands. Though Stravinsky’s Petrushka was received with slightly more criticism, it still ensured the composer’s international success. A far cry from late Romanticism, the emphasis here is on clear forms, sharp edges and diatonic pronunciation. The three works are uniquely presented in their chamber music version for piano. With only their four hands, David Salmon and Manuel Viellard manage to recreate an entire orchestra, transporting the listener to a musical era bursting with opportunity. The aural symbiosis of the two pianists seems even more refined than in their last recording and demonstrates that the duo still have a bright future ahead of them. © Lena Germann/ Qobuz
From
CD$12.09

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1, Op. 13 "Winter Dreams" / Debussy: Images

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Classical - Released January 1, 1971 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

From
CD$12.45

KOECHLIN, C.: Piano Music, Vol. 1 (Korstick)

Michael Korstick

Classical - Released January 1, 2008 | SWR Classic

From
CD$11.49

Debussy: La boîte à joujoux, 6 Épigraphes antiques & Sarabande (Orch. Caplet, Ansermet & Ravel)

Armin Jordan

Classical - Released February 12, 2021 | Warner Classics

Armin Jordan, who passed away in 2006, was an atypical conductor and an extraordinary personality. With a Swiss-German father and a Genevan mother, he straddled two cultures and two languages, bringing clarity to the music of Wagner, which he adored, and endowing French music with mystery and sometimes even introspection. He was a jovial, generous, unpredictable man, adored by orchestral musicians, which is quite rare for a conductor, because he was never aloof or self-satisfied.Michel Garcin, the director of Erato Records, adored this singular man whom he trusted to such an extent that he commissioned him to record a voluminous discography, the quality of which is still hailed fifteen years after the Swiss conductor's death. He has recorded with several orchestras, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande of course, of which he was musical director from 1985 to 1997, but also with the two orchestras of Radio France, that of Monte Carlo and, as here, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, which is also the orchestra of the Basel Opera, of which Jordan was the adored director.Curiously, it is a German orchestra that pays indirect tribute to Ernest Ansermet, whose 1932 orchestration of Debussy's work Jordan interprets here with great finesse. Ansermet had met Debussy on several occasions and knew that the composer intended Epigraphes antiques for the orchestra. But his death prevented him from carrying this project through to the end. The tribute continues with a recording of La Boîte à joujoux, the children's ballet that Ansermet recorded and whose rehearsal, recorded without his knowledge, remains a poetic monument to his work. Ansermet's influence was considerable, particularly for the two great later figures of Swiss conducting, Charles Dutoit and Armin Jordan, who both worked with him. © François Hudry/Qobuz
From
CD$14.39

Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann

Raoul Jobin

Classical - Released January 1, 1948 | Warner Classics

From
CD$19.76

La Belle Hélène

René Leibowitz

Opera - Released September 8, 2003 | Preiser Records

From
HI-RES$17.49
CD$13.99

Chansons pour elle

Julie Cherrier-Hoffmann

Mélodies - Released June 25, 2021 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet
Julie Cherrier here records an album of songs exploring a variety of moods and situations, and covering over a hundred years of French mélodie, from Reynaldo Hahn to the present day. It includes classics of the genre (Debussy’s Nuit d'étoiles, Poulenc’s Les chemins de l’amour), but also very recent compositions, in the form of two song cycles by Frédéric Chaslin. Chansons pour elle (to poems by Jean Cocteau) and Nudités (on texts by Alain Duault) are imaginative works, free in their expression. Music of today meets music of yesterday and the result is both subtle and poetic. © Aparté Music
From
HI-RES$15.56
CD$12.45

Debussy: La mer, Ibéria, Images & 6 Épigraphes antiques

Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg

Classical - Released November 1, 2018 | PentaTone

Hi-Res Booklet

Ravel: Piano Works

Martha Argerich

Classical - Released February 7, 2023 | UME - Global Clearing House

Download not available
From
HI-RES$2.39
CD$2.09

Les contes d'Hoffmann: Barcarolle (Arr. for 2 Cellos and Piano)

Raphaela Gromes

Classical - Released May 3, 2019 | Sony Classical - Sony Music

Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$17.49
CD$13.99

No(s) Dames

Théophile Alexandre

Opera - Released January 21, 2022 | NoMadMusic

Hi-Res Booklet
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