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J. S. Bach: A Life in Music (Vol. 1). Arnstadt & Mühlhausen (1703-1708), Early Cantatas
Les Arts Florissants
Cantatas (sacred) - Released April 5, 2024 | harmonia mundi
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This 2024 release, which made classical best-seller lists in the spring of that year, marks the first in a chronological series devoted to Bach's church cantatas. It is not going to be a complete series; rather, it will examine Bach's output in this genre according to style and to the circumstances under which the works were composed. (A second volume, devoted to the Weimar years, has already been announced.) This hasn't been a common practice with Bach, partly because it is difficult to date some of the works, and for this reason alone, the album is welcome. There are other attractions as well, including the well-coordinated, chamber-like quality of the performances by Les Arts Florissants and the group's director, Paul Agnew. His tempos are generally quick, but he can broaden out when necessary, and his interpretations, as he indicates, are carefully rooted in the text. Another draw is the presence of a cantata by Johann Kuhnau, setting the same text as Bach's famous Cantata No. 4, BWV 4 ("Christ lag in Todes Banden"), that does a very nice job of showing just how original the young Bach's style was. All three of the cantatas here have bold masterstrokes of rough-hewn expression, devoid of the smoothing out that would come later as Bach discovered the clean, bright Italian style. The program is broken up by organ works related to the cantatas here, and organist Benjamin Alard takes care to fit his readings to Agnew's overall expressive mode. Agnew's forces are modest; he adds just a single voice per line to the four soloists in the choruses. This is generally undesirable, blurring the solo/chorus distinction that is essential to Bach's music and, indeed, to his ideological world. Here, however, Agnew is able to argue that these were the forces available to Bach in the small churches where he began his career; whether or not he would have preferred a larger group, he doubtless often heard these works done just like this. The Paris Philharmonie is a bit oversized for this repertory, but the clarity of Bach's contrapuntal lines comes through well. A promising beginning to a distinctive new Bach cantata series.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Handel: L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released June 23, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Handel's L'allegro, il penseroso, ed il moderato, HWV 55, is an underrated work. Composed in 1740 as he was beginning to turn decisively toward English-language music, it was based on a pair of contrasting pastoral poems by Milton. Handel mixed these together and had his librettist, Charles Jennens (soon to write the text of Messiah, HWV 56), add a third part, Il Moderato, as a kind of synthesis at the end. It sounds thrown together, but the music is brilliant and has much in common with that of Messiah; the chorus has a lot to do, great care is taken with the accompanied recitatives, and the solos are full of tunes that are, given the chance, just as memorable as that of the famed later oratorio. The durable William Christie, 78 years old when this album appeared in 2023 and vaulted onto classical best-seller lists, generally specializes in French music with his group Les Arts Florissants, but he has been performing this ode in concert, and it is wonderful to find that he has gotten around to recording it. It is a wonderful reading that captures and highlights the dramatic contrasts in the work, which really plays to Christie's strengths in handling a complex score, selecting the right soloists who may not be at the top of the charts, and finding the excitement in unfamiliar Baroque scores. He excels across the board here. Among the soloists are a couple of standouts, soprano Rachel Redmond and boy soprano Leo Jemison. Christie takes brisk tempos, grabbing the listener's attention right at the top with the quick introduction to the recitativo accompagnato "Hence with vain deluding joys." The proportions in everything are just right, with a choir of 20 and an orchestra of 28 deployed so as to reflect vividly the contrasts in the text. Listeners unfamiliar with this work could not ask for a better introduction to it. Harmonia Mundi's sound at the Paris Philharmonie keeps the texts clear, even in densely polyphonic music.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Schütz: Italian Madrigals
Les Arts Florissants
Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released October 6, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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This 2023 release is way outside the usual zone for the ensemble Les Arts Florissants and director Paul Agnew, who have specialized largely in the French Baroque. The booklet even lists an Italian language coach, but it is quite worthwhile, for these Italian-language madrigals by Schütz are sparsely recorded. They were published in 1611 while Schütz was studying in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli, and they reflect his mastery of the polyphonic Italian madrigal style. There are some splashes of chromaticism, but nothing resembling the music of Gesualdo, Marenzio, or the other late Italian madrigalists. Instead, the model is the early madrigal books of Monteverdi, which would have been very much in the air while Schütz was there. The music reflects the texts in great detail, which was one of the straws in the wind pointing toward the emergent operatic styles, and there is a certain dramatic quality that seems to prefigure the mature Schütz. This is captured well by Les Arts Florissants, essentially opera specialists, and while there is a feel suggesting that the musicians are coming to this tradition from the outside, the performances hold the listener's attention. The Philharmonie in Paris is not really the right venue for this music and gives it a remote sound, but this is, nonetheless, a valuable addition to the Schütz discography.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Vivaldi: The Great Venetian Mass
Les Arts Florissants
Masses, Passions, Requiems - Released June 24, 2022 | harmonia mundi
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A puzzling paradox: although Vivaldi devoted over 30 years to composing for the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, no complete musical setting of any liturgy by him has come down to us. By intercalating existing examples of his sacred music (such as the famous Gloria) and other works given a different text to suit their new liturgical function (Sanctus and Agnus Dei), the ensemble Les Arts Florissants now offers us a compelling reconstruction of a solemn Mass which the "Red-Haired Priest" might have written... for just such an assembly of exceptional soloists! © harmonia mundi
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Gesualdo: Tenebræ Responsoria, Feria Quinta
Les Arts Florissants
Sacred Vocal Music - Released March 10, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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The singers of Les Arts Florissants made their names in French Baroque opera, but their recordings of Carlo Gesualdo under director and tenor Paul Agnew have been uniformly successful. Their intense readings of the composer's secular madrigals are very strong but do not fundamentally depart from earlier performance traditions. The situation is different with the Tenebrae Responsories, which have often, as sacred works, been performed by choirs. Agnew argues that the likely candidates for having performed them this way would not have been up to the technical challenges and that these works were essentially sacred madrigals performed in specialized spaces by a one-to-a-part group similar to those that sang the secular pieces. No doubt, this idea is subject to debate, but the musical results here are impressive. These are late pieces, akin to Gesualdo's highly experimental last two books of madrigals. They don't have quite the radical harmonies of those pieces, but in a sacred context, they must have sounded plenty startling, and Les Arts Florissants puts this across with haunting effect. The sound from the Abbatiale d'Ambronay matches perfectly what Agnew had in mind, and the end result is a superb conclusion to the group's series. This release made classical best-seller charts in early 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Gesualdo: Madrigali, Libri quinto & sesto
Les Arts Florissants
Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released March 10, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Gramophone: Recording of the Month
The madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo were new territory for Les Arts Florissants, a group that specializes mostly in French Baroque opera, but the cycle, which concludes with this double album featuring the composer's tortured fifth and sixth books, has been consistently strong and has brought many new insights; the album reached the top levels of classical sales charts in early 2023. Gesualdo and his style have been used in narratives that don't necessarily fit the actual music. For Stravinsky and his contemporaries, the dissonance-loving Gesualdo was a proto-modernist, but Les Arts Florissants leader (and tenor voice) Paul Agnew points out that the trends in his music were also present in that of other composers of the Mannerist late 16th century. It is conventional to connect the experiments in Gesualdo's music to the facts of his life: he caught his wife and her lover in flagrante, murdered them both, beat the rap at trial, and spent the rest of his life in seclusion. Agnew doesn't buy this connection, either, and his interpretations avoid the emotional extremes present in other performances. At the most intense moments, he may steer the singers just a bit toward spoken inflections, but mostly his dissonant harmonies are precise and cutting. The sound is a bit swallowed up in the Philharmonie de Paris, but the laconic statements of Gesualdo's chosen texts are clear. A fine conclusion to a cycle of music by a composer who warranted a fresh look.© James Manheim /TiVo
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Haydn: Paris Symphonies - Violin Concerto No. 1
Les Arts Florissants
Symphonies - Released September 15, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Among the major conductors of the historical performance movement, William Christie has been slower than others to move beyond the Baroque. He has recorded some Haydn with his orchestra Les Arts Florissants, including a notably successful take on the oratorio Die Schöpfung. Here, he offers readings of four of Haydn's six "Paris" symphonies, missing only the Bear and the Hen. They were premiered by the Orchestra of the Olympic Lodge under the direction of the newly rediscovered Black conductor and composer Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, with an orchestra including 40 violins and ten double basses. It is interesting how orchestra size is rarely considered when "authentic" performances are being organized, and Christie's group is considerably smaller than that. However, listeners will experience the durable virtues of Les Arts Florissants, including energetic Allegro movements and fine instrumental work from the difficult period brasses and winds. Perhaps Christie's minuets sound too much like the French Baroque dance; they are stately rather than humorous. On the plus side is the performance of the rather rarely heard Violin Concerto No. 1, Hob. 7a/1, by the impressively named Théotime Langlois de Swarte, who also conducts the piece (and is a bit livelier than Christie); sample his highly tuneful Adagio. Harmonia Mundi's noisy Cité de la Musique sound, in music written for a theater of well-upholstered luxury boxes, is a disincentive here.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Rameau: Les Indes galantes
Les Arts Florissants
Opera - Released October 14, 1991 | harmonia mundi
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Charpentier: Un Oratorio de Noël
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released September 10, 1983 | harmonia mundi
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The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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M.A. Charpentier: Actéon & Intermèdes nouveaux du Mariage forcé
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released June 1, 1987 | harmonia mundi
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Charpentier: Te Deum, H.146, Litanies de la Vierge & Missa "Assumpta est Maria"
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released April 27, 1989 | harmonia mundi
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Handel: Messiah
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released August 22, 1994 | harmonia mundi
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Rameau: Platée
Les Arts Florissants
Opera - Released October 15, 2021 | harmonia mundi
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A marsh nymph thinks she is so irresistible that Jupiter himself will take an interest in her... Brimming with exceptional dramatic and musical verve, this strangely under-recorded "ballet bouffon" offers us Rameau’s art in a nutshell: glittering orchestration, harmonies and rhythms of unprecedented modernity. William Christie and his comrades plunge with delight into what is one of its composer’s most fascinating works. © harmonia mundi
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Charpentier: Le Malade imaginaire
Les Arts Florissants
Opera - Released October 8, 1990 | harmonia mundi
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The Qobuz Ideal Discography
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Handel: Music for Queen Caroline
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released December 1, 2014 | harmonia mundi
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Purcell Edition Volume 1 : Dido & Aeneas, King Arthur & The Fairy Queen
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released May 4, 1995 | Warner Classics International
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Duetti (Bononcini, Conti, Porpora, Marcello, Scarlatti, etc.)
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released November 4, 2011 | Warner Classics
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Diapason d'or -
Diamant d'Opéra -
Choc de Classica
This album of Baroque cantatas and chamber duets grew out of a 2007 performance of Stefano Landi's 1631 opera Il Sant'Alessio starring Philippe Jaroussky and Max Emanuel Cencic (among the eight countertenors in the cast) with William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissants. (An excellent DVD of the performance is available on Virgin Classics.) Christie was so impressed with the blend of Jaroussky and Cencic's voices that he brought them together to explore the vast and rarely performed repertoire of late 17th and early 18th century Italian duets for equal voices. The duetti da camera and chamber cantatas were a wildly, widely popular entertainment, especially during the tenures of Popes who forbade performances of opera; among the six composers represented on this disc, Bononcini wrote over 300 and Marcello 82, so the total number written and performed during this period must be staggering. Christie is absolutely correct: the blend of these two particular voices is ravishing. They have different characters and are easily distinguished from one another, but Jaroussky and Cencic both stand out among the very finest exemplars of the extraordinarily fine crop of counter tenors that has come to prominence since the turn of the century. Cencic's voice may be the purer and Jaroussky's the more colorful, but both have irreproachable technique; intelligent, nuanced musicianship; and together there is undeniable vocal chemistry. The music itself is delightful; the composers for the most part are not among the most renowned of the era, but they are masters of writing music that makes voices sound gorgeous together. This is largely pastoral music and the vocal lines are intertwined with beguiling sensuality. Each singer also performs a solo cantata. Christie, playing harpsichord or organ, leads a group of five players, made up of two violins, cello and theorbo/lute in lively, sensitive accompaniment. The sound is beautifully clean, warm, and balanced. Strongly recommended; a terrific find for fans of Baroque vocal performance of the highest order. It's easy to imagine that these performances could even make converts of listeners who have never been especially fond of countertenors.© TiVo
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Gesualdo: Madrigali, Libri terzo & quarto
Les Arts Florissants
Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released February 5, 2021 | harmonia mundi
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The facts of Carlo Gesualdo's life are perhaps as well known as his music: he caught his wife and her lover in the act, brutally murdered them both, fled her enraged family, and entered a life of seclusion where he pursued increasingly arcane and extreme musical experiments. A source of controversy with the present release may be that Les Arts Florissants director Paul Agnew argues in the booklet that the wildly experimental qualities of the last books of Gesualdo's madrigals, even found in the Book IV pieces included here, actually shouldn't be connected to the murder but were rather in the cards at the end of the long Italian madrigal tradition. Agnew has a certain amount of evidence on his side; other composers such as Luca Marenzio and the melodiously named Luzzasco Luzzaschi pursued the same kinds of innovations as Gesualdo did. Whatever one's position, these are unusually strong Gesualdo performances. What Agnew and his singers do that often eludes others is to pay attention to the texts, avoiding the agonized mannerisms common in the repertory and deploying just a hint of inflection toward speech instead of sung pitch where it's appropriate. The range of dynamics and phrasing is large -- listen to the deliciously quiet "Dolcissimo sospiro" -- and the listener's interest never flags over the substantial program. Les Arts Florissants have performed Gesualdo frequently, and they are well attuned to the tremendous tension in his music, the feeling of having no idea where the music will go next, no matter where that tension may actually have been coming from. If your Gesualdo collection is in need of a refresh from the classic recordings of Stravinsky's day, this is a fine choice; it is also a good place to start with Gesualdo for anybody.
© TiVo
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Lully: Petits Motets
Les Arts Florissants
Sacred Vocal Music - Released December 24, 1987 | harmonia mundi
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Rameau: Castor & Pollux
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released March 8, 1993 | harmonia mundi
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