Orchestre Lamoureux
A private concert organization, the Orchestra of Lamoureux Concerts has one of the longest histories and most honored names in the history of Parisian symphonic music. In the 1990s it began emerging from a period when its historical prestige far exceeded its present artistic merit.
Conductor Charles Lamoureux (1834-1899) was offered a contract by the Théätre du Château d'Eau to give weekly symphonic concerts. His orchestra, named the Société des Nouveaux-Concerts, gave its first performance on October 23, 1881. It had competitors: the Association Artistiques, founded by Colonne in 1874, and the Concert Populaires led by Jules Etienne Pasdeloup (1819-1887). When the Nouveaux-Concerts merged with a short-lived rival (Concerts de l'Opéra) in 1897 and took the name Concerts Lamoureux, the new name was only a ratification of what he had been called informally for years, and also honored its leader, who retired that year and gave his son-in-law the post of conductor.
After Lamoureux died in 1899, his musicians organized into a co-operative society to continue the orchestra. It remained an important force in French music, giving the premieres of both the Nocturnes (1900) and La Mer (1903) by Debussy, and numerous other new works. When World War I depleted its ranks, it temporarily merged with the Concerts Colonne (which had similarly perpetuated itself following Colonne's death).
Paris between the wars was a world center of new music. The Colonne and Lamoureux separated and the Concerts Pasdeloup was revived in 1920, each writing chapters in the busy musical history of that era. Paul Paray, Albert Wolff, and Eugène Bigot conducted the Lamoureux (and the other two, as well). A change in the way the symphony business in Paris was conducted was foreshadowed in 1937, when the government funded the National Orchestra of RTF (the French radio service) for broadcasting purposes. This evolution was stalled for a while by the German occupation of 1940-1944, which slowed concert life, but the Lamoureux survived. Jean Martinon and Igor Markevitch were among its chief conductors in the decades after the war, but the private orchestras declined in quality as the state-sponsored groups took the forefront of orchestral music. Competition got even worse when the Conservatorie Concerts were disbanded in 1968 to be replaced by the full-time professional Orchestre de Paris. This resulted in the decline of all three private concert series.
The 96 musicians of the Lamoureux Concert Orchestra began to rebuild their historic prestige. In 1993, after two guest appearances by virtually unknown conductor Yutaka Sado, the orchestra hired him as their chief conductor. Under his leadership the Lamoureux Orchestra began recording again and its first recording was a group of Jacques Ibert competitions on the Naxos label and then began a program to record many of the masterworks by Ravel and others that the orchestra had premiered.
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Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6; Francesca da Rimini (Igor Markevitch – The Deutsche Grammophon Legacy: Volume 13)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1956
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rossini: Ouvertures du Barbier de Séville, L'échelle de soie & Guillaume Tell - Respighi & Rossini: La boutique fantasque (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Roberto Benzi
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Messe No. 15, K. 317 "Krönungsmesse" (Stereo Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch, Chœur Elizabeth Brasseur
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Delibes: Suites de Sylvia & Coppélia (Mono Version)
Jean Fournet, Orchestre Lamoureux
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1954
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Delibes: Lakmé, sélection (Mono Version)
Pierrette Alarie, Léopold Simoneau, Orchestre Lamoureux, Pierre Dervaux
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1956
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Fauré: Requiem (Mono Version)
Camille Maurane, Maurice Duruflé, Orchestre Lamoureux
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1954
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust (Igor Markevitch – The Deutsche Grammophon Legacy: Volume 10)
Richard Verreau, Consuelo Rubio, Michel Roux, Pierre Mollet, Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1960
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Fauré: Suite de Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80 - Debussy: Petite suite, L. 65 (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Jean Fournet
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1956
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Haydn: Symphonies Nos. 103 "Roulement de timbales" & 104 "Londres" (Stereo Version)
Igor Markevitch, Orchestre Lamoureux
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5 "Egyptian" (Mono Version)
Magda Tagliaferro, Jean Fournet, Orchestre Lamoureux
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1954
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Borodin: In the Steppes of Central Asia - Rimsky-Korsakov: Sheherazade - Mussorgsky: Night On Bald Mountain (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Jean Fournet
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1958
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Offenbach: Orphée aux enfers, Extracts (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Jules Gressier, Claudine Collart
Classical - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1958
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Liszt: Les préludes & Rhapsodie hongroise No. 2 - Beethoven: 3 Ouvertures (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Roberto Benzi
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven, Schubert & Mendelssohn: Works for Violin
Franco Gulli, Enrica Cavallo, Teatro la Fenice Orchestra, Orchestre Lamoureux, Ettore Gracis, Rudolf Albert
Classical - Released by Urania Records on 19 Jan 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ravel: Ses Amis et Ses Interpretes (Maurice Ravel)
Classical - Released by Music and Arts Programs of America on 1 Aug 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Ouvertures (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Offenbach: La vie parisienne, extraits - Varney: Les mousquetaires au couvent, extraits (Mono Version)
Nadine Renaux, Orchestre Lamoureux, Jules Gressier, Marcel Cariven
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1954
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Saint-Saëns: Suite algérienne (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Jean Fournet
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1958
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Otto Klemperer, Wiener Symphoniker
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1962
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Ouvertures (Stereo Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Roberto Benzi
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Quatrième mouvement de la Symphonie No. 9 & Symphonie No. 5 (Stereo Version)
Hilde Gueden, Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo