Your basket is empty

Categories:
Narrow my search:

Results 1 to 20 out of a total of 5135
From
CD$14.39

Schubert : Winterreise (Voyage d'hiver)

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau

Classical - Released February 23, 2018 | Warner Classics

Distinctions Diapason d'or
From
CD$12.45

Hommage à la chanson Québecoise

Claude Sirois

Alternative & Indie - Released October 30, 2001 | Disques Mérite

From
HI-RES$31.79
CD$24.59

Aux étoiles - French Symphonic Poems

Orchestre National De Lyon

Classical - Released October 20, 2023 | Bru Zane

Hi-Res Booklet
This double-album release from the specialist Palazzetto Bru Zane label, better known for opera but doing fine here with orchestral music, landed on classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023, and this is really no wonder. The album puts together many attractive features, beginning with fine work from the beefy (34 violins) Orchestre National de Lyon under conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider. The album comprises a little history of the French tone poem from the third quarter of the 19th century to the second decade of the 20th, and it includes many works that will be unfamiliar to all but specialists, along with a few hits (Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre, Op. 40, Paul Dukas' L'apprenti sorcier ["The Sorcerer's Apprentice"] in a brisk, colorful performance, Emmanuel Chabrier's España, and perhaps Franck's Le chasseur maudit). As for the rest, there are no fewer than four works by women composers: Lili Boulanger, Augusta Holmès, Mel Bonis, and Charlotte Sohy; the Danse mystique of the latter is perhaps both the most obscure and the most compelling. Several works by better-known male composers also seem well worth removal from the historical scrap heap; sample Ernest Chausson's hushed Viviane, Op. 5, or Vincent d'Indy's Istar, Op. 42, the tone poem Wagner never wrote. Or the title work by Henri Duparc, much more familiar as a song composer. More generally, one is impressed by the cohesion of the program as a whole, even as French styles underwent fundamental change. Most of the composers try to show a mastery of the large orchestra and of the big tune as second subject. This is a highly listenable group of pieces that hearers will be glad to know better.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$16.59
CD$14.39

Chanson d'Amour

Sabine Devieilhe

Classical - Released September 11, 2020 | Warner Classics

Hi-Res Booklet Distinctions 4F de Télérama
Sabine Devieilhe and Alexandre Tharaud bring their customary clarity, finesse and insight to the works of four composers who defined the path of French art song or "mélodie" from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. In an imaginatively balanced recital, the two French luminaries perform Fauré, Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc. Their programme, built around Ravel's Cinq Chansons populaires grecques and Debussy's Verlaine setting Ariettes oubliées, takes up the themes of love, war and death and offers both favourite songs like Fauré's Après un rêve and some rarer treasures. © Erato
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99

Voyage intime

Sandrine Piau

Classical - Released February 3, 2023 | Alpha Classics

Hi-Res Booklet
No one can accuse soprano Sandrine Piau of ever resting on her laurels, and with this 2023 release, she began, in her late fifties, a new partnership with accompanist David Kadouch. It is a bit hard to tell what the theme is supposed to be all about. Only some of the songs are "intimes," and many are not about voyages; Piau also notes that some of the songs are about "the theme of people being snatched away from the land of the living," not an especially intimate concept. Best just to listen and take the songs one by one, and this will reveal not only strong performances but organizational principles the performers don't mention. The first part of the program is devoted to German lieder, the second to French mélodies (before a final return to Schubert), with one piano piece in each set. Piau is arguably the greatest French interpreter of German song, and her Schubert Erlkönig, D. 328, has nothing trite about it as she inhabits but doesn't make opera characters out of the three characters in the piece. Another "theme" is that Piau really makes songs by women her own. There is a group by Clara Schumann, with an excellent setting of Heine's Lorelei that owes something to Erlkönig but is in no way a knockoff, and a fine group by Lili Boulanger that fits Piau beautifully. Sample Si tout ceci n'est qu'un pauvre rêve. Perhaps the Mignon songs do not fit her quite so well at this late date, but the heftier numbers by Liszt and Wolf more than make up for this. Yet another theme is that these are all songs that give the pianist a great deal to do, and Piau's interactions with Kadouch are sensitive and detailed enough to make one eagerly anticipate future collaborations. Superbly recorded by Alpha at the Teldex Studio in Berlin, the album made classical best-seller charts in early 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$21.09
CD$18.09

Hope@Home

Daniel Hope

Classical - Released August 14, 2020 | Deutsche Grammophon (DG)

Hi-Res
It's not entirely clear where Daniel Hope's 2020 album Hope@Home was recorded: the location, except for one track recorded at the Frauenkirche in Dresden, is given merely as "Berlin." If it was indeed recorded at the violinist's home, he has a space with an unusually live acoustic that is somewhat at odds with the impression of intimacy that he seeks to convey. That's one of the few complaints here, however, for Hope has, in many ways, made a virtue of necessity. His program is built around a long list of guests, as if in the manner of a home musical soirée, including both instrumentalists and singers. The pianist on the majority of the tracks is Christoph Israel, who also serves as arranger, and it is the variety of these that really makes the album. Hope manages to pull off the idea of having a large group of talented house guests experimenting at the piano, and this is not easy to do with a convincing quality of spontaneity. Consider the unusual combination of Falla's "Asturiana" with Rudyard Kipling's poem "If," spoken by Iris Berben, or a yet more unexpected America the Beautiful. The main sequence of the program consists of a mix of classical (Schubert and Brahms) and popular American, British, and continental European songs. It may be calibrated to appeal to varied audiences, but it is relaxed, fun, often ingenious, and quite lovely.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99

Schubert: Voyage d'hiver

Victoire Bunel

Classical - Released January 12, 2024 | B Records

Hi-Res Booklet
From
CD$18.09

Un Jour Si Blanc

François Couturier

Jazz - Released January 25, 2010 | ECM

The title of François Couturier's album, Un Jour Si Blanc, comes from a poem by Soviet filmmaker Andreï Tarkovsky, an artist with whom the pianist is fascinated and whose work was the inspiration for his entire 2006 album, Nostalghia: Song for Tarkovsky. The French pianist has devoted most of his career to jazz, but he obviously knows the classical repertoire well because in previous albums he has made musical references to composers as diverse as Pergolesi, Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Schnittke. That broad frame of reference gives his music an uncommon expressive scope, and the selections on this album offer an impressive stylistic and emotional range. It's possible to hear the influence of Messiaen in L'aube, Ligeti in the crystalline chromatic sections of the title track, and sultry hints of Piazzolla in Voyage d'hiver, but there is no sense of appropriation because the voice is always Couturier's own. His dazzlingly crisp technique gives him the freedom to explore and create pianistic figures that would be out of the reach of all but the most virtuosic players. In the more meditative pieces, he plays with a mesmerizing, unhurried serenity and flexibility; it almost feels like it's possible to hear him listening. Couturier can be heard quietly vocalizing in the more intense passages, but it's no distraction. The album should appeal to fans of both jazz and new classical music with a taste for the adventurous. ECM's sound is characteristically clean, clear, and immediate. © TiVo
From
CD$8.89

Berlioz: La damnation de Faust & Harold en Italie (Les indispensables de Diapason)

Igor Markevitch

Classical - Released May 2, 2023 | Les Indispensables de Diapason

From
CD$9.19

Guy Sacre - Oeuvres pour piano

Billy Eidi

Classical - Released June 17, 2022 | Le Palais des Dégustateurs

Booklet
From
HI-RES$14.82
CD$9.88

Invitation au voyage

Stéphanie d'Oustrac

Classical - Released October 20, 2014 | Ambronay Éditions

Hi-Res Booklet

Mischa Maisky - Great Recordings

Mischa Maisky

Classical - Released January 8, 2022 | UME - Global Clearing House

Download not available
From
HI-RES$25.29
CD$21.89

The Secret Fauré: Orchestral Songs & Suites

Olga Peretyatko

Classical - Released August 10, 2018 | Sony Classical - Sony Music

Hi-Res Booklet
If Le Secret is the title of a melody that Gabriel Fauré composed on a rather vapid poem by Armand Silvestre, it doesn’t seem like it inspired the title of the present album called “The Secret Fauré”, and it is rather underlining the rare and intimate character of the works. Ivor Bolton, conducting the Sinfonieorchester Basel, of which he is the artistic director, offers a very subtle selection composed of extracts of stage music or music for the stage: Caligula, Pénélope, Shylock, Pelléas et Mélisande, mixed with a few melodies orchestrated by Fauré or more probably by his friends, such as Charles Koechlin. The Russian soprano Olga Peretyatko, the new international queen of bel canto, lends her voice to the very discreet art of Fauré. Forgotten are her numerous Traviata in Berlin, at the Met or in Vienna, in favor of a song of a reserved limpidity. Alongside her, tenor Benjamin Bruns and the Balthasar Neumann female choir complete this disc devoted to a certain French spirit seen from outside, made of a blend of insouciance, discreet elegance and some futility. © François Hudry/Qobuz
From
CD$7.19

José Van Dam et la mélodie française

José Van Dam

Classical - Released March 7, 2002 | Forlane

From
HI-RES$15.09
CD$13.09

Le Voyage d'Hiver

Franz Schubert

Vocal Music (Secular and Sacred) - Released September 16, 2008 | Analekta

Hi-Res Booklet

Bonsoir Amis (CD) - Live Au Palais Des Congrès 2004

Henri Salvador

French Music - Released November 1, 2004 | Parlophone (France)

Download not available
From
HI-RES$10.19
CD$8.19

Beffa: De l'autre côté du mirroir

Karol Beffa

Classical - Released October 11, 2019 | Indésens

Hi-Res Booklet

Rêve de Noël: Musique relaxante pour un meilleur sommeil d'hiver pendant les vacances

Marie Noël

Miscellaneous - Released December 29, 2021 | Equipment Media International

Download not available
From
HI-RES$16.59
CD$13.29

Im Freien

Zlata Chochieva

Classical - Released May 19, 2023 | naïve

Hi-Res Booklet