Philippe Herreweghe
Conductor Philippe Herreweghe pioneered the performance of Bach's choral music on period instruments and remains renowned in the field. He is the leader of several connected ensembles that perform music from the late Renaissance to the contemporary era.
Herreweghe was born in Ghent, Belgium, on May 2, 1947. He concurrently studied medicine and psychiatry at the University of Ghent, in addition to studying piano with Marcel Gazelle at the Conservatory in Ghent. During that time, he founded the Collegium Vocale of Ghent (1969). Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt took notice of the young artist and promptly invited him and his newly organized ensemble to collaborate with them in a recording project that would document the entire catalog of Bach's cantatas. Continuing his education at the conservatory, Herreweghe studied the harpsichord with Johan Huys and organ with Gabriel Verschraegen.
Ambitious, to say the least, Herreweghe formed numerous ensembles that each respectively acted as a performance vehicle for specific genres and periods of composition, resulting in numerous recordings for the Harmonia Mundi label. His Ensemble Vocale Elysées specialized and concentrated on the work of Bach and his predecessors. The Ensemble La Chapelle Royale (founded with Philippe Beaussant in 1977) focused on music from the French Baroque, as well as vocal scores from the Classical and Romantic eras. The Ensemble Vocale Européen (founded 1989) concentrated on Renaissance polyphony, while the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées (founded 1991), an original instrument ensemble, performed literature from the Classical and Romantic periods. Herreweghe divides his time in thirds and spends one with early music, one with the Romantic repertoire, and the last third with contemporary compositions. In an interview with La Scena Musicale (November 1997), the conductor described his ensembles as a "poupée russe, you know, those Russian dolls that fit one inside the other." The core Baroque group is Collegium Vocale. For bigger works and French Baroque pieces, it may be enlarged as La Chapelle Royale. and for Classical and Romantic-era music, still more players are added to form the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées.
In addition to all his own groups, Herreweghe has guest conducted many prestigious ensembles, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Orchestra of St. Luke's in New York City, among others. Herreweghe assumed the position of music director of the Festival of Saintes in 1982. He began his long career with Harmonia Mundi in 1989, releasing an album of music by Henry Dumont. In the year 1992 alone, he released 23 albums.
The conductor, nominated for Musical Personality of the Year (1990), has received many more awards, including European Musician of the Year (1991), Cultural Ambassador of Flanders with his Collegium Chorale (1993), and the order of Officer of Arts and Letters (1994). Herreweghe assumed the post of music director of the Flanders Philharmonic Orchestra in 1997, and beginning in 2002, served as its principal conductor (it is now the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, and Herreweghe remains honorary conductor). From 2008 to 2013, he was the principal guest conductor of the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. He has continued to record for Harmonia Mundi but has also issued albums on various smaller labels, including, especially in the 2010s, Phi and PentaTone Classics. The range of Romantic and contemporary music Herreweghe has conducted on recordings is perhaps greater than that of any other conductor associated with the early music movement and includes a complete cycle of Beethoven's symphonies, masses by Palestrina, Dvořák's Requiem mass, choral music by Stravinsky, and much more. On Harmonia Mundi, he and Collegium Vocale released an album of five-part madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo in 2021.
© David Brensilver & James Manheim /TiVo
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J.S. Bach Oratorio de Noël
Philippe Herreweghe, Collegium Vocale Gent
Classical - Released by Warner Music Group - X5 Music Group on 16 Mar 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Cantatas BWV 29, 119 & 120 (Philippe Herreweghe)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 1 May 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Palestrina: Missa Assumpta est Maria & Motetti
La Chapelle Royale, Philippe Herreweghe
Classical - Released by Ricercar on 1 Jan 1981
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Gran Partita - Sérénade No.12 "Nacht Musique" K.388
Harmonie de l'Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and Philippe Herreweghe
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 20 Apr 1997
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mendelssohn: Motets
Sacred Vocal Music - Released by harmonia mundi on 31 Jul 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Symphony 4, Alt-Rhapsodie, Schicksalslied
Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, Philippe Herreweghe, Collegium Vocale Gent, Ann Hallenberg
Classical - Released by Phi on 24 Feb 2017
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on 29 May 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C, "The Great"
Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe
Classical - Released by PentaTone on 1 May 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Purcell: Odes for Saint Cecilia's Day (Philippe Herreweghe)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 9 Jun 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven, L. van: Symphony No. 9
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 1 Mar 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3
Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 1 Mar 2008
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Philippe Herreweghe: A Conversation with Camille De Rijck
Classical - Released by Phi on 12 May 2017
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Weihnachtskantaten (Philippe Herreweghe)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 1 Sep 1996
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: "Christus, der ist mein Leben" (Philippe Herreweghe)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 1 Mar 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Nuits d'été, Herminie
Philippe Herreweghe, Brigitte Balleys, Mireille Delunsch, Orchestre des Champs-Elysées
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 7 Jun 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven, L. Van: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 6
Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Philippe Herreweghe
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on 1 May 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Lully: Armide (Philippe Herreweghe)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 10 May 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schein: Israelis Brünnlein
Mélodies - Released by harmonia mundi on 31 Jul 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gilles: Requiem
Philippe Herreweghe, La Chapelle Royale
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 17 May 1990
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Himmelfahrts-Oratorium (Philippe Herreweghe)
Classical - Released by harmonia mundi on 1 Oct 1993
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Cantates profanes
Mark Padmore, Carolyn Sampson, Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe
Cantatas (secular) - Released by harmonia mundi on 1 Sep 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo