Alpha Classics

Leonardo García Alarcón, a performer who today is enjoying dazzling success, left his native Argentina to settle in Geneva, where he worked with the great figures of early music who teach from the Geneva Conservatory: Christiane Jaccottet for the harpsichord, and Michel Corboz and Gabriel Garrido for choral and instrumental direction. After a sensational version of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, here he is as harpsichordist for this album devoted to the young Bach and his precursors.In dialogue with Chouchane Siranossian's gushing violin and Balázs Máté's virtuoso cello, Alarcón revives the works of Carlo Farina, Johann Gottfried Walther, Georg Muffat, Johann Paul von Westhoff and Andreas Anton Schmelzer, composers who seized upon the new instrument, the violin, this "new lyre of Apollo" according to Alarcón, using all its expressive and technical resources. The violin quickly became the king of instruments, capable of expressing all human emotions as well as the sounds of nature. This is eloquently demonstrated by Chouchane Siranossian, who uses different bowing depending on the style of playing she is looking for.The French violinist, of Armenian origin, studied modern violin with Tibor Varga and Zakhar Bron, and baroque violin with Reinhard Goebel. Her recordings, exclusively for the Alpha Classics label, have won numerous awards. Her fiery temperament and extraordinary virtuosity are further enriched by a musicological approach which focuses on the often little-known composers whom she likes to rescue from oblivion in the name of historical research. This delightful album proves the connection between Bach and his predecessors in terms of the use of the solo violin long before the Sonatas and Partitas, accompanied by the continuo. © François Hudry/Qobuz

The French-Cypriot soprano Sarah Aristidou joins Alpha and here presents her very first album. Twice named "Best Newcomer" by Opernwelt for two contemporary creations, she is a favourite interpreter of Jörg Widmann who has already written two works for her, and has sung under the direction of Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle and François-Xavier Roth. Barenboim opened the doors of Berlin to her and the Orchester des Wandels, a group of musicians from several German orchestras, including the Staatskapelle Berlin, who have set themselves the objective of practising their art in a way that protects the planet: limiting the carbon footprint in all their activities, including this album. The packaging of the physical version is plastic-free and printed with organic ink. Alpha also supports the reforestation programme in Madagascar initiated by the orchestra. In addition to the encounter between the young singer and the unique orchestra, this project is also the result of Sarah’s passion for Iceland (the land of Aether par excellence?). Along with the director and photographer Weronika Izdebska, she has created a film exalting the natural world which will be shown in Berlin in November 2021 as part of an installation presenting the entire programme. © Alpha Classics

"You have understood nothing of my simplicity", wrote Paul Verlaine in Child Wife. And that is precisely what Julien Joubert’s music seems to whisper to us with each note.The composer and pianist works regularly with the Maîtrise de Radio France, which has premiered many of his works. Here he has set two cycles by the great nineteenth-century poet to music for this recording (Ariettes oubliées and Aquarelles, for mixed choir). An ambitious programme, yet accessible to everyone, in all simplicity. © Alpha Classics

"Specchio Veneziano" or the Venetian mirror – this programme compares and contrasts two composers from the city of the Doges: on the one hand the celebrated Vivaldi, on the other a virtual unknown, Giovanni Battista Reali, who was born there in 1681, three years after Vivaldi, and died in 1751, ten years after his illustrious colleague. A violinist himself, he composed trio sonatas, including a very spectacular Folia, which Théotime Langlois de Swarte, Sophie de Bardonnèche, Hanna Salzenstein and Justin Taylor juxtapose with Vivaldi’s Folia, alongside other highly virtuosic pieces, many of them complete rediscoveries, since half of this programme has never been recorded before. © Alpha Classics

The pianist Jonathan Fournel, recent prizewinner of the prestigious 2021 Queen Elisabeth Competition (where he won not only the Queen Elisabeth Grand Prix, but also the Queen Mathilde Prize, the Musiq3 Audience Prize and the Canvas-Klara Award) has joined the Alpha label for several recordings, starting with a Brahms programme recorded in the superb acoustic of the music room at La Chaux-de-Fonds just before the Competition: "Over the years, for me Brahms has become a figure I admire so tremendously, a composer I can never tire of. It was fairly obvious to me that I had to make my first recording with these two works that I love so much". The 28-year-old French pianist has been gathering many plaudits for his concerts and shows all the signs of developing a great career and a highly individual artistic path. © Alpha Classics

From the first lickety-split notes of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro overture, you know you’re in for a rollicking ride here from what is both Julien Chauvin and his period-instrument Le Concert de la Loge’s first foray on Alpha, and the first in their new cycle devoted to Mozart. Actually, it must be said that the sheer hold-onto-your-hats pace of this Figaro overture takes some getting used to, to the extent that some listeners won’t acclimatise. However, whatever your view on its tempo, it’s certainly a high-impact opener. Also a telling one, given that it strongly suggests – underlined by the concerto and symphony performances that follow – that this cycle’s hallmarks are likely to be ones of breathtaking ensemble virtuosity, feather-light tread laced with plumply punchy explosions, bold individuality, and yes, the speedometer occasionally hitting the red. Onwards to the Third Violin Concerto, Chauvin as soloist, and this is a thing of joyous beauty, from the gossamer-weighted nimbleness, buoyancy and airy transparency of the ensemble playing, to the clean, unfussy lines and supple elegance from Chauvin himself; and while the central Adagio doesn’t hang around, the overriding impression is of grace rather than hurry, Chauvin spinning his song with uncluttered lyricism over sensuous orchestral throbbing accompaniment, before delivering an exquisitely delicate, gentle-ornamented cadenza. Followed by a gloriously fun-filled, multi-faceted finale that’ll often have you wanting to pick up your dancing shoes. Having recently emerged from a long immersion in the world of Haydn, this lot are experts in eighteenth century musical humour, and it shows. Likewise for Mozart’s magnificent ”Jupiter” Symphony No. 41 in C major, in that they manage to honour the majesty, pomp and fizz of what was Mozart’s longest symphony, while equally reminding us of its more tongue-in-cheek, opera buffa side. Talk about a cracking start. Bring on the next instalment! © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

Les Kapsber’girls, an ensemble of four singers and instrumentalists directed by the lutenist Albane Imbs, has already released its debut album (Che fai tù?, released on Muso) which received several awards. The group now joins Alpha for several recordings, starting with "Vous avez dit Brunettes?" – "brunettes" being the name of the chansons that lovers crooned in each others’ ears by the Bassin d’Apollon or among the groves of the Petit Trianon at Versailles Palace, undeniably light in character yet powerfully authentic. Seventeenth-century France was home to a host of artists whose talent served the nobility and the bourgeoisie, who were extremely partial to these airs. Performing them as vocal solos or duets with lute or viol, Les Kapsber’girls bring back to life, more than three centuries later, these works published by Ballard & Fils, printers to the Sun King, alongside such little-known composers as Julie Pinel and Giuseppe Saggione. © Alpha Classics

"Going all the way back to the Celts and the Druids, the term "nemeton" designates a place where forces and energies are crystallised, generally clearings where solemn or ritual actions were performed. The best-known nemeton is certainly Stonehenge. The architectural marvel of Chartres Cathedral is built on a nemeton. In composing this piece for solo percussion, I wanted to depict a “place” of this kind by means of sound. I’m utterly fascinated by the instrumentarium of this work, consisting chiefly of metal, wood and skin instruments that don’t have their own “specific” resonance. The trajectories between the different tones condition and define the energy charge, rather as if two beings, in the mad hope of an encounter, were rushing towards each other", writes Matthias Pintscher as an introduction to one of the pieces in this monograph of works composed between 2000 and 2018: it also includes his violin concerto Mar’eh, the concerto for piano and ensemble Nur, Beyond for flute, Verzeichnete Spur, Lieder und Schneebilder, Celestial Object I & II and Occultation. © Alpha Classics

This album celebrates a musical rapport that has lasted for twenty years and, above all, a true friendship: "We’re like two sisters, on stage and in life", as Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Sol Gabetta like to say. In parallel with their dazzling solo careers, they have frequently got together for concerts in trio or double concerto formation (like the one written for them by Francisco Coll, recently released on Alpha Classics). But they have conceived this recording for a rather rare combination, the violin-cello duo – with the aim of choosing pieces they found interesting either stylistically or for the way they use the instruments. The programme includes the Duo written by Zoltán Kodály in 1914, which was not premiered until 1924, two years after Maurice Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Cello, along with a few forays into the Baroque period (Leclair, Scarlatti, Bach) and, of course, works by twenty-first-century composers to whom the two soloists are very close: Jörg Widmann, Francisco Coll and Julien-François Zbinden are on the itinerary of this introspective journey into the generous world of two total artists. © Alpha Classics

Johann Sebastian Bach has made the reputation of Café Zimmermann ever since the ensemble was formed in 1999. This new recording presents the music of the Kantor from a different angle, that of the notebooks in which musicians wrote down pieces and movements they particularly liked. This recording brings together works composed by Bach in the late 1740s which may be described as intimate in character, including the famous Trio Sonata from his Musical Offering. The Baroque idiom of this "experimental" sonata is contextualised by the innovative style developed by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel in one of his own trio sonatas. A number of arias by J. S. Bach are also presented here with exclusively instrumental forces. Under the direction of violinist Pablo Valetti and harpsichordist Céline Frisch, the ensemble even ventures into Mozartian territory with the Aria and Fugue, K. 404a, taken from two pieces by Bach that Mozart himself had annotated and arranged in his own musical notebook. Finally, a chorale that Bach was particularly fond of, a three-part fugue played here by harpsichord and flute. Carl Philipp Emanuel had it printed at the end of his father’s musical testament, The Art of Fugue: "Before thy throne I now appear". © Alpha Classics

The year 2021 marks the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Saëns, the French pianist, organist, critic and great Romantic composer. The cellist Astrig Siranossian plays the first of his two cello concertos, composed in 1872, notable for the fact that it comprises a single movement in three sections, and for the thunderous irruption of the cello right at the start. She is accompanied by the Philharmonie Südwestfalen and its conductor Nabil Shehata, who is also an eminent double bass player – the principal of the Berlin Philharmonic in the 2000s – and deeply committed to Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, of which Astrig is also a member. The tribute continues with the Symphony No. 1 (one of five he wrote), composed when he was only eighteen. The famous Bacchanale, an oriental-flavoured dance from Act Three of the opera Samson et Dalila, completes the programme. © Alpha Classics

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo is naturally an iconic work for Leonardo García Alarcón. The Argentinian conductor has performed and matured his interpretation of Monteverdi’s masterpiece throughout his life. Together with his group of soloists, the Namur Chamber Choir and the Cappella Mediterranea ensemble, he now presents his vision of L’Orfeo: Monteverdi’s opera is as much the apotheosis of the Renaissance as a testimony to the nascent Baroque style. This is what strikes us when we listen to this new recording, which so eloquently emphasises the contrasts between sometimes nostalgic glances towards the past and the most innovative expressions of operatic language. The printed score, published two years after the premiere in Mantua in 1607, offers contrasts too: is it the snapshot of a specific performance or a "blueprint" intended for future performers? In fact, it is both, and that is where we find the tricky questions that must be answered by those who open this precious document; Leonardo García Alarcón does so here in a manner at once respectful, inventive and theatrical. © Alpha Classics

The talented Chemirani family - Keyvan, Bijan and Maryam - have recorded an album called Hâl (pronounced "Hol"), which explores the intersection of Iranian, Indian and Irish music. Subtitled "Love ballads", it features love poems with texts sung in English or Persian. The "hâl" corresponds to the moment when one lets oneself go, that ecstatic state between awakening and self-forgetfulness… Keyvan, a zarb and percussion virtuoso, and Bijan, an expert on the saz lute and also a percussionist, are known from the highly regarded Trio Chemirani, formed with their father. This album introduces their sister Maryam, a singer but also a nurse, who followed in the footsteps of Mother Teresa in India, then worked in the Alpes de Haute Provence. Keyvan devised this programme especially for her, inspired both by her voice which is "warm and deeply generous" and her compassionate spirit which imbues her performance with added emotion. The incredible flute player Sylvain Barou, their brother in music, completes the ensemble. © Alpha Classics

Collectif 9 is a Montreal-based string ensemble whose main focus is an original exploration of the classical repertoire, including transcriptions for chamber ensemble of large-scale works. Alpha is starting a collaboration with this innovative group and now presents its very first album, recorded in 2018 and consisting of music by (and inspired by) Gustav Mahler, "No Time for Chamber Music", a nod to Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, inspired in its turn by Mahler’s Second Symphony. Mahler himself often quoted his own works, and his rich instrumental textures have provided a source of inspiration for composers and arrangers alike. The programme begins with two works drawn from his First Symphony, "Comme un bruit de la nature" (Like a sound of Nature) and "L’Enterrement du chasseur" (The hunter’s Burial), inspired by a woodcut by the nineteenth-century artist Moritz von Schwind in which the animals mourn the death of the hunter. The ensemble’s double bass player, Thibault Bertin-Maghit, made the arrangements, while Philippe Hersant has written a Fantaisie based on fragments from a number of works by Mahler.© Alpha Classics