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Philippus de Monte: Madrigali spirituali

Cappella Mariana

Classical - Released October 20, 2023 | Passacaille

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Thalberg: Piano Works

Francesco Nicolosi

Classical - Released May 14, 2021 | Naxos

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Monteverdi: Daylight. Stories of Songs, Dances and Loves

Rinaldo Alessandrini

Classical - Released November 5, 2021 | naïve

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Oh, ma belle brunette

A Nocte Temporis - Reinoud Van Mechelen

Classical - Released May 27, 2022 | Alpha Classics

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The term "brunette" refers not only to a young woman with brown hair, but also to a musical form that was highly fashionable from the late seventeenth century to the early eighteenth. The genre evolved from the air de cour, extremely popular in France since the beginning of the seventeenth century. The compositional process, however, remained very similar: to write a short, tender song, dealing with themes of love or nature, which could be sung alone or accompanied by a harmonic instrument. The late seventeenth century also saw the appearance of an instrument that soon became a favourite of composers and amateur musicians: the German flute, now called the traverso or Baroque flute. In this new programme, tenor Reinoud van Mechelen, flautist Anna Besson and A nocte temporis present an anthology of airs and brunettes ranging from the most touching song to the heartiest drinking song (air à boire). © Alpha Classics
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Un jardin à l'italienne (Aria, Cantatas & Madrigals)

William Christie

Classical - Released September 8, 2017 | harmonia mundi

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4 étoiles Classica
The six young singers of the Academy of Le Jardin des Voix, selected from several hundred candidates, offer us a musical journey through some of the finest pieces in the Italian repertory, from a Banchieri madrigal to Haydn’s Orlando paladino. Thanks to an outstanding training programme and the musical values transmitted by William Christie and Paul Agnew, here is a chance to discover both some splendid vocal gems and a group of new performers who honour them with talent, grace and humour. Sheer delight! © harmonia mundi
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J'écoute Bach et Haendel avec ma maman

Anne Queffélec

Classical - Released December 3, 2012 | Mirare

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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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Il gioco della cieca. Madrigali, Canzoni & Villanelle per cantare, et sonare

Concerto di Margherita

Classical - Released February 4, 2022 | Arcana

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A young ensemble of instrumentalists and singers revives the precious historical practice of singers accompanying themselves (already brought back into currency by the soloist Vivabiancaluna Biffi), thus producing a wholly new sound in music usually assigned to unaccompanied voices. With Concerto di Margherita, self-accompanied singing becomes "collective" for the first time in our era, and is amplified in a shared gesture in which all the members of the group – playing and singing together with extraordinary coordination – produce a sonority unprecedented in this repertory. Created at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Switzerland, the group (which is named after the Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga) performs as a consort of five voices, theorbo, harp, viola da gamba, guitar and lutes, inspired by the "Concerto delle dame" of Ferrara. The recording debut of Concerto di Margherita presents arrangements of a wide range of instrumental and vocal works (madrigals, villanellas and canzonas), drawing on music by De Wert, Gastoldi, Monteverdi and the "blind man’s buff" scene from Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido (1580). © Arcana
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Rossini: Figaro? Sì!

Florian Sempey

Classical - Released April 22, 2022 | Alpha Classics

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The French baritone Florian Sempey has established himself as a key player on today’s operatic scene. For his first solo recital, Rossini was the obvious choice, first of all because he has already performed the title role in Il barbiere di Siviglia in the leading opera houses, from Paris to London, and of course by way of Orange and Pesaro. But there is another reason: "Rossini was the first composer’s name I heard in my life. At my grandparents’ house, there was a bust above the piano, on a little rococo display stand" - the bust that appears on the cover of this album. "Rossini’s music is a challenge for singers and also a great and very strict technical training for them. It calls for the highest standards and degree of precision". This programme presents arias in French and Italian, mingling the most famous (including Figaro’s "Sono il factotum") with rarities such as Germano’s aria from La scala di seta and Don Parmenione’s from L’occasione fa il ladro. It also includes magnificent duets with two dream partners, Karine Deshayes and Nahuel Di Pierro. And who better to conduct the Orchestre de l’Opéra National Bordeaux Aquitaine than the accomplished Rossinian Marc Minkowski, who gives this music an inimitable sparkle? © Alpha Classics
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Johann & Josef Strauss : Valses célèbres - Rossini: Ouvertures - Mendelssohn : Les Hébrides (Diapason n°574)

Fritz Reiner

Classical - Released February 25, 2009 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or
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Karol Szymanowski: Piano Works

Krystian Zimerman

Classical - Released September 30, 2022 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Diapason d'or - Choc de Classica
Recordings by Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman are a rare event, and eagerly awaited by his many fans. They surely won’t be disappointed with this new opus that brings together Szymanowski, Zimerman and legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein.Returning to his roots, Krystian Zimerman pays tribute to his compatriot Karol Szymanowski on the 140th anniversary of the composer’s birth. This selection of little-known works testifies to the importance of Szymanowski within the piano repertoire. A long twenty-eight years separate Zimerman's recording of Masques, Op. 34 (made in 1994 in Copenhagen) from the rest of the programme, which was recorded in 2022 in the exceptional acoustics of the Fukuyama Concert Hall near Hiroshima.Nevertheless, the considerable lapse of time between these recordings doesn’t detract from the album's coherence. This is thanks to Zimerman's fluid, clear and readable sound, which—as we know—leaves nothing to chance. This fascinating recording reveals various facets of Szymanowski's compositional genius and features both his mature and early works, all of which were influenced by the great Chopin.Composed during the First World War whilst staying at the family estate in Ukraine, the three parts of Masques evoke Debussy, Scriabin and Stravinsky. However, each movement is overlaid with the orientalist perspective so typical of the Polish composer. A few carefully chosen Préludes and Mazurkas stand alongside the splendid Variations on a Polish Folk Theme for piano, Op. 10, composed by a young Szymanowski still in the process of mastering his mother tongue. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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French Duets - Fauré: Dolly Suite; Ravel, Debussy, Poulenc etc.

Steven Osborne

Classical - Released March 5, 2021 | Hyperion

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Mon amant de Saint-Jean

Le Poème Harmonique

Classical - Released August 25, 2023 | Alpha Classics

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This release showed up on classical best-seller charts in the late summer of 2023, perhaps because it represented a genuinely original experiment. Mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d'Oustrac, the small ensemble Le Poème Harmonique, and conductor and theorbist suggest... well, what, exactly? That there is an affinity between French popular song and French and Italian music of the 17th century? Not quite, although there were intriguing connections between popular song, outlined in the booklet, and the very earliest stages of the historical performance movement at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The program is organized into three sections, "Jeunesse," "Les vieux airs," and "Les amours passées," but the 20th century songs and the 17th century pieces mostly don't overlap within these groups; "Les amours passées" are all popular songs. The program makes quite a lurch between an excerpt from Cavalli's L'Egisto and Paul Marinier's D'elle à lui, and the lurch would have been even greater if the popular songs hadn't been chosen to exclude any hints of African-American-influenced song. Léon Fossey's Les canards tyroliens, a kind of yodeling song about ducks, simply doesn't inhabit the same universe as Monteverdi's Lamento d'Arianna. Perhaps it would be best to say, as the publicity does, that there are "echoes" between the two traditions, and d'Oustrac plainly has enthusiasm for both repertories; her personality is largely enough to carry the listener through. There is definitely a need for programming and performance that mixes classical and popular material, which have never been as far apart as they have been made out to be. This release may not be a definitive solution, but it is an intriguing and listenable attempt. © James Manheim /TiVo
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Fauré: Complete Songs

Cyrille Dubois

Mélodies - Released May 13, 2022 | Aparté

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions Gramophone: Recording of the Month
From Papillon et la fleur to L’Horizon chimérique, Gabriel Fauré has created some one-hundred melodies which have transformed this French art form into the very pinnacle of musical expression. Many musicians get caught up in the technicalities of his original works, often forgetting to perform, not just recite. Written for a plethora of voices and commonly transposed for convenience, Fauré’s melodies are never recorded solo. Yet this is the gamble that was taken—and successfully at that—by tenor Cyrille Dubois and Pianist Tristan Raës (who have been playing music as a duo for around fifteen years).Several tweaks were needed to undertake such a project. In collaboration with the Palazzetto Bru Zane (Centre de musique romantique française), the pair made a series of difficult choices with regards to transpositions. These decisions were vital in respecting the tonal sequences between the opuses and during the cycles, without betraying Fauré’s harmonic plans. It was also necessary to select the order of the opuses, whose character has developed somewhat over a period of sixty years.   The complete works offered here (which are one of the most significant events of Spring 2022), consists of three recitals, each mixing styles and periods. Cyrille Dubois who expertly blends the style of lyrical song with French chanson, whilst injecting just the right amount of old-fashioned nostalgia. He’s supported by Tristan Raës’ fluid and bright piano. The French tenor’s perfectly controlled timbre does the text real justice, rendering it effortlessly intelligible. This delightfully simple and direct approach transports Fauré’s vast body of work into the 21st century, making it perfectly relevant to the contemporary. This recording will undoubtedly hold a special place in the hearts of those who will commemorate the centenary of the great composer’s death in 2024. © François Hudry/Qobuz
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Stravinsky: L'Oiseau de feu; Feu d'artifice; 4 Etudes

Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO)

Classical - Released July 7, 2023 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

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Psyché

Christophe Rousset

Classical - Released January 13, 2023 | Château de Versailles Spectacles

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Legrenzi: La morte del cor penitente

Ensemble Masques

Classical - Released June 2, 2023 | Alpha Classics

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Debussy: Piano Works

Walter Gieseking

Classical - Released October 10, 1996 | Warner Classics

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Bizet: Carmen, WD 31

Herbert von Karajan

Classical - Released January 1, 1964 | Sony Classical

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Unicum: New Songs from the Leuven chansonnier

Ensemble Leones

Chamber Music - Released February 24, 2023 | Naxos

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