Toscanini regarded this orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition as a genuine treatise on instrumentation, on a par with that of Berlioz: scored for the same instrumental forces as La Valse, Ravel’s version quickly established itself ahead of all the many competing orchestrations of Mussorgsky’s piano suite! In François-Xavier Roth’s view, La Valse and the Pictures together represent the peak of the composer’s output for the symphony orchestra of his time – that is to say, as the musicians of Les Siècles reconstruct it for us today. What a joy to get back to the original colours of this music! © harmonia mundi

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

This release is part of a Berlioz series by conductor John Nelson and the Orchestre philharmonique de Strasbourg, but it is the soloists who shine here. Tenor Michael Spyres, who is really hitting his stride, has a voice pleasantly suited to French music, rounded and subtle, but there is more; Berlioz suggested that several singers perform the orchestral song cycle Les nuits d'été, Op. 7, but Spyres takes all the songs himself. Moreover, he does them in the original keys, which is rarer still. This calls for a singer with exceptional control of dynamic extremes in different parts of his range, and Spyres is exceptionally flexible in this regard. There is a confidence and nonchalance to this performance that grows on the listener as the performance proceeds, even as the sound engineering puts Spyres too far front and center to the detriment of the orchestra's contributions. This isn't so pronounced in the anti-concerto Harold en Italie, Op. 16, and here again, there is a standout soloist; Timothy Ridout offers a rich sound and a real narrative quality that seems to evoke the score's source in Lord Byron's long poem. This exceptionally satisfying Berlioz album hit best-seller charts in late 2022.© James Manheim /TiVo

Regular duet and two-piano partners, Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie have returned to the studio for this all-Debussy programme. The present album features duets written by the composer himself – such as the Petite suite, the Six épigraphes antiques, and the Marche écossaise sur un thème populaire, as well as a number of arrangements of his solo piano pieces (Première Arabesque, La Fille aux cheveux de lin, Ballade slave). The album ends with André Caplet’s monumental arrangement of Debussy’s best-known orchestral work, La Mer. Stripping the work of its orchestral colours, this two-piano version allows the listener to appreciate more easily Debussy’s ground-breaking harmonic innovation. The album was recorded in the concert hall at Snape Maltings, in Suffolk, using a pair of Bösendorfer 280 VC grand pianos. © Chandos

Aeon's 2005 recording of Ibsen's 1867 verse play Peer Gynt, including the incidental music by Edvard Grieg, clocks in at about three and a quarter hours and is the closest thing to a complete performance of the play and incidental music available on CD, but even so, the text was considerably trimmed for that production. For listeners more interested in the music than the play, Aeon has released this disc of the music from that recording. It's advertised as the "unabridged score," but to fit it on a single disc, four numbers had to be omitted. At 75 minutes, it includes substantially more music than the two popular suites, enough to satisfy most listeners looking for a nearly complete performance of Grieg's score. This version uses soloists and chorus according to Grieg's intentions for the incidental music, offering fresh insights into the music for listeners familiar only with the suites. Guillaume Tourniaire leads l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in sensitive and carefully shaped performances of the brief musical episodes. His is a fairly conventional reading of the score, but it is spirited and played with style, and shouldn't disappoint the composer's fans. The addition of the chorus in two of the movements devoted to Peer's adventures in the hall of the Mountain King is especially thrilling, and Le Motet de Genève sings beautifully and vigorously. The vocal soloists are very fine, particularly Inger Dam-Jensen as Solveig. Grieg's use of a Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian folk instrument similar to a violin, is exceptionally effective, and gives the score a much stronger nationalistic flavor than the music from the suites suggests, and it's played with raw vitality by Vegar Vardal. Aeon's sound is clear and well-balanced, with a good sense of presence.© TiVo

Alice Sara Ott's 2013 CD of keyboard works by Modest Mussorgsky and Franz Schubert was part of a recital she gave at St. Petersburg's White Nights festival, recorded on July 3, 2012, in the Mariinsky Theatre. This album was the result of discussions between Ott and Deutsche Grammophon to release a disc of solo repertoire, and recording her live presented an appealing opportunity to add the ever-popular Pictures at an Exhibition to her discography. If the atmosphere of the occasion can be detected in Ott's expressions, it is perhaps most noticeable in subtle nuances, rather than in the bigger gestures. For all of the piece's grandeur and weight, Ott seems to shine most in the quieter sections, and her delicate playing takes on a poetic quality that is lacking in the loud, clangorous passages, which are all vigor and bravado. On this disc (though not in the order of the recital), Pictures is followed by Schubert's Sonata in D major, D. 850, which balances the program with its length and gravitas, though its moods are more enigmatic and elusive. Ott's controlled handling of the Con moto and Finale is admirable, though her playing in the first movement and the Scherzo is fairly aggressive and hard-edged. Ott's many fans will want this CD for the energy and fire she displays, though newcomers may want to hear her studio albums to get a clearer impression of her abilities.© TiVo

The musical world owes a debt of gratitude to French conductor Christophe Rousset not only for the vital, exquisite performances he delivers with the ensembles Les Talens Lyriques and Choeur de Chambre de Namur, but for his work in bringing to light neglected masterpieces of Baroque opera. Lully's Bellérophon, premiered in 1679, was a huge success in its time, with an initial run of nine months. Part of its popularity was doubtless due to the parallels that could be drawn between its plot and certain recent exploits of Louis XV, but even the earliest critics recognized the score's uniqueness and exceptional quality within Lully's oeuvre, so it's perhaps surprising that it has never been recorded before. The distinctiveness of the music was likely a result at least in part of the fact that Lully's preferred librettist Philippe Quinault was out of favor at the court of Louis XV at the time, so the composer turned to Thomas Corneille for the libretto, and Corneille's literary and dramatic styles were so different from Quinault's that Lully was nudged out of his comfort zone and had to develop new solutions to questions of structure and the marrying of music to text. It is the first opera for which Lully composed fully accompanied recitatives, and that alone gives it a textural richness that surpasses his earlier works. The composer also allows soloists to sing together, something that was still a rarity in Baroque opera. There are several duets and larger ensembles; the love duet, "Que tout parle à l'envie de notre amour extreme!," is a ravishing expression of passion and happiness, as rhapsodic as anything in 19th century Italian opera. The level of musical inventiveness throughout is exceptional even for Lully; the expressiveness of the recitatives, the charm of the instrumental interludes, the originality of the choruses, and the limpid loveliness of the airs make this an opera that demands attention. Rousset and his forces give an outstanding performance that's exuberantly spirited, musically polished, rhythmically springy, and charged with dramatic urgency. The soloists are consistently of the highest order. Cyril Auvity brings a large, virile, passionate tenor to the title role and Céline Scheen is warmly lyrical as his lover Philonoë. Ingrid Perruche is fiercely powerful as the villain, Stéenobée, and Jean Teitgen is a secure, authoritative Apollo. Soloists, chorus, and orchestra are fluent in the subtle inflections of French middle Baroque ornamentation. The sound of the live recording is very fine, with a clean, immediate, realistic ambience. This is a release that fans of Baroque opera will not want to miss. Highly recommended. © TiVo