Marc Minkowski
Conductor Marc Minkowski is best known as the founder and longtime director of Les Musiciens du Louvre, a pioneering French Baroque ensemble that has also proven one of the field's most durable. He has also conducted music of the Classical and Romantic periods, often unearthing and shaping performances of forgotten works.
Minkowski was born in Paris on October 4, 1962. His father was a pediatrics professor and a founder of the field of neonatology; his mother came from the U.S. Minkowski began his career as a bassoonist and soon became interested in the growing field of historical performance, performing with such leading groups of the day as Les Arts Florissants, the Ricercar Consort, and the Clemencic Consort. He studied conducting with Charles Bruck at the Pierre Monteux School in Hancock, Maine, and returned to Europe determined to apply what he had learned to early music. In 1982, he founded Les Musiciens du Louvre, one of the first instrumental groups to specialize in the French Baroque, and he got a boost when he won the first International Early Music Competition in Bruges, Belgium, two years later. Under Minkowski, the orchestra has premiered unusual works in both the operatic and instrumental fields, such as Marin Marais' Alcyone, Jean-Joseph Mouret's Les amours de Ragonde, and Jean-Baptiste Lully's Phaëton. He has also been associated with the revival of several neglected operas of Handel. Beginning in the late '80s, Minkowski began recording with Les Musiciens du Louvre for many years on the Erato label and later for Archiv Produktion. His recorded repertory focused on little-known Baroque works, but he also recorded perennial favorites, such as Handel's Water Music, in 1998.
Les Musiciens du Louvre moved to the city of Grenoble in 1996 and became associates of the Maison de la Culture de Grenoble. Minkowski remains the ensemble's conductor, but in the second part of his career, his interests have grown to include music of the Classical and Romantic eras. He was ahead of most other historically inclined conductors who have taken this career turn. Minkowski has unearthed little-known works such as Grétry's La Caravane du Caire and, in 2013, he conducted a recording of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer, paired with a little-known setting of a condensed version of the Wagner libretto by Pierre-Louis-Philippe Dietsch. He has a distinguished record as a guest conductor with top-flight orchestras, including the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Staatskapelle Dresden, among others. On the Naïve label, he began to record 19th century music, including a cycle of Schubert's symphonies in 2012 and several of the operas of Jacques Offenbach. In 2020, Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre released a recording of Mozart's Mass in C minor, K. 427, on the PentaTone label. In the 2020s, he has worked with the Baroque specialty labels Château de Versailles (on 2022's Rameau: Nouvelle Symphonie) and Palazzetto Bru Zane (on Meyebeer's opera Robert le Diable, with the Orchestra National Bordeaux Aquitaine the same year). His catalog of recordings comprises more than 70 items.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Haendel : Water Music, Rodrigo
Symphonic Music - Released by naïve classique on Sep 27, 2010
Stereophile: Record To Die For24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Nouvelle Symphonie
Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Florian Sempey
Classical - Released by Château de Versailles Spectacles on Apr 22, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schubert : Symphonies (Intégrale)
Symphonic Music - Released by naïve classique on Sep 10, 2012
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Meyerbeer: Robert le Diable
Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Marc Minkowski, John Osborn
Classical - Released by Bru Zane on Sep 23, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Joseph Haydn : London Symphonies (Symphonies londoniennes)
Marc Minkowski, Les musiciens du Louvre Grenoble
Symphonic Music - Released by naïve classique on Jul 15, 2013
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart : Mass K.427 "Great" (Recons. H. Eder) [Live]
Classical - Released by PENTATONE on Jul 3, 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Mozart: Mitridate, rè di Ponto
Michael Spyres, Sabine Devieilhe, Elsa Dreisig, Marc Minkowski
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Oct 29, 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Ariodante
Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on Jan 1, 1997
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Offenbach : La Périchole (Live)
Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski, Chœur de l'Opéra National de Bordeaux
Classical - Released by Bru Zane on Jun 14, 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Jean-Philippe Rameau : Une symphonie imaginaire (Live)
Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on May 2, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel: Giulio Cesare
Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on Jan 1, 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gluck: Orphée et Eurydice
Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
Classical - Released by Archiv Produktion on Jan 1, 2004
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mondonville: Titon et l'Aurore, Op. 7
Jean-Paul Fouchécourt, Catherine Napoli, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Marc Minkowski
Opera - Released by Warner Classics on Oct 7, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Carmen - L'Arlésienne
Classical - Released by naïve classique on Mar 17, 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Les nuits d'été opus 7 - Harold en Italie opus 16
Classical - Released by naïve classique on Oct 10, 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Handel Edition Volume 2 - Il Trionfo del Tempo, Teseo, Amadigi
Classical - Released by Warner Classics International on Jun 23, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rossini: Figaro? Sì!
Florian Sempey, Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Marc Minkowski
Classical - Released by Alpha Classics on Apr 22, 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Offenbach: La Belle Hélène
Felicity Lott, Michel Sénéchal, Yann Beuron, Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre
Classical - Released by Warner Classics on Sep 6, 2001
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
J.S. Bach: Johannes-Passion (St John Passion)
Classical - Released by Erato - Warner Classics on Mar 24, 2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Richard Wagner : Der Fliegende Holländer - Pierre-Louis Dietsch : Le vaisseau fantôme ou le maudit des mers
Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Pierre-Louis Dietsch
Classical - Released by naïve classique on Nov 4, 2013
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo -
Offenbach: Orphée aux enfers
Natalie Dessay, Laurent Naouri, Véronique Gens, Ewa Podles, Marc Minkowski, Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lyon
Opera - Released by Warner Classics on Oct 1, 1998
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo