Chantal Santon-Jeffery / Purcell Choir / Orfeo Orchestra / György Vashegyi BRILLEZ, ASTRES NOUVEAUX!

                                                   BRILLEZ, ASTRES NOUVEAUX!

Chantal Santon-Jeffery / Galilei Consort / Benjamin Chénier STRADELLA Lagrime e Sospiri

Alessandro Stradella’s music is currently enjoying a moment, and not before time. Ensemble Mare Nostrum’s Stradella Project is now four volumes into its comprehensive recording survey of the composer’s oratorios, leading the revival of fortunes that Stradella’s expressive and multifaceted music has long deserved. This recording from soprano Chantal Santon Jeffery and France’s Galilei Consort cherry-picks from both the composer’s sacred and secular works, as well as his instrumental music, to create a more accessible (and even more persuasive) case for this neglected master.

The problem, as the disc’s own notes acknowledge, is that for a long time Stradella (whose fragmented career began in Rome before relocating to Venice and finally Genoa) was better known for his colourful biography than his music. Sex scandals, attempted murders and actual murders may make for a great story but they also bring a certain energy to music comfortable at the emotional extremes.

Take the mad scene from the opera La forza dell’amore paterno, for example, which reels and wails in explosive and unexpected musical directions. Jeffery’s light soprano rides the waves of musical emotion with ease, marshalling the shifting moods with precision but also a wonderful expressive abandon. Another opera scene, this one from Moro per amore, shows us the ‘hell of love’ in grotesque musical detail that lurches between despair and fury with bewildering speed thanks to the ferocious brilliance of the Galilei Consort’s musicians, directed from the violin by Benjamin Chenier.

The oratorios are no less charged. From its exquisite Overture through both the colourful recitative and the arias, the lovely Santa Pelagia charts an appealing course between sensuality (the saint was a former courtesan) and chaste self-control, while San Giovanni Battista’s Salome is a young woman terrifyingly in control of her sexual allure and power, reaching its peak in dizzying semiquaver passages that twinkle like the gemstones in Salome’s dress as she dances.

Anyone looking for a quick introduction to Stradella’s music should find more than enough incentive here to search out more, while those already familiar will take pleasure in the dramatic scope of these fine performances. (Alexandra Coghlan / Gramophone)

Lea Desandre / Natalie Pérez / Chantal Santon-Jeffery / Opera Fuoco / David Stern BERENICE, CHE FAI?

Berenice, que fai… Or frantic Berenice. Metastasio’s heroin, facing a dilemma of love versus duty, inspired the great operatic composers such as Hasse, Haydn, Mozart such as one of their female peers, still unknown today, Marianna Martinez, contemporary and even neighboring some of them.

To interpret this colorful character, three singers and an orchestra: the mezzo Léa Desandre, rewarded at the Victoires de la Musique in 2017, the sopranos Natalie Perez and Chantal Santon-Jeffery, and the impetuous conductor David Stern at the head of his period instruments-ensemble, Opera Fuoco.

True actors, these musicians restore the theatrical dimension of these scores without sacrificing the sensitive and fragile aspect of the character. An emotional complexity, between exhilarating madness and more tragic pages, that we find in Hasse’s Sinfonia, from his opera Antigono and of which Opera Fuoco gives us a full version of panache.

Les Pages et Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles / Collegium Marianum / Olivier Schneebeli MICHEL-RICHARD DE LALANDE Grands Motets

One of the great composing figures from the French Baroque, Michel-Richard de Lalande is starting to receive his just dues through modern recordings, and Glossa is happy to unveil a new release featuring Olivier Schneebeli directing Les Pages et Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles in three of Lalande’s sumptuous grands motets. Very much a favoured composer during the reign of Louis XIV, Lalande progressively assumed – from the 1680s onwards – more and more of the principal court offices, and was called upon to provide sacred music for the Chapelle Royale within the Château de Versailles. Although the new (and ‘definitive’) chapel was not consecrated until 1710, the trio of grands motets (extended multi-movement choral and solo settings, typically of Psalms, with instrumental accompaniment) recorded here will have been conceived of according to the chapel’s architectural and acoustical characteristics. Thomas Leconte, from the CMBV, provides an illuminating historical backdrop in his booklet essay.

Much detailed performing information from Lalande’s time is known today – including number of instrumental forces used and about the composer’s later revisions of his scores – and Venite, exultemus Domino, De profundis and Dominus regnavit all receive expressive and meticulously-prepared performances within the Chapelle Royale itself. To the quality of preparation of the CMBV maîtrise can be added the presence of a quartet of vocal soloists deeply experienced in the style of music from this time: Chantal Santon-Jeffery, Reinoud Van Mechelen, François Joron and Lisandro Abadie. Likewise, the contribution of Jana Semerádová’s Collegium Marianum provides exemplary instrumental support to Schneebeli’s direction in this new CMBV production.

Théophile Alexandre / Guillaume Vincent ADN BAROQUE

The countertenor Théophile Alexandre and the concert-pianist Guillaume Vincent dare baring baroque music in Piano-Voice. In 21 pieces, like the 21 grammes of human soul, the artists dive us into the heard of mankind emotional DNA, exposing unheard facets of baroque essence : an audacious contemporary réinvention exploring the strengths and vulnerabilities of mankind through the powerful intimacy of piano-voice. Included : 4 duets with the sopranos Chantal Santon & Marion Tassou.

Le Concert Spirituel / Hervé Niquet JEAN -PHILIPPE RAMEAU Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour

The latest in Hervé Niquet's 'reinvigorations' of French operatic music from the Baroque and beyond for Glossa is Rameau’s 1747 'Les Fêtes de l’Hymen et de l’Amour'. A ballet heroïque in a prologue and three entrées, the whole work was designed to comprise a complete theatrical spectacle. Music for dancing – as befits a ballet – is given a prominent role and Rameau is able to create especially expressive symphonies and to give the choruses – even a double-chorus – an integral role in the action. Added to this are supernatural effects, and plots for the entrées which explored the then uncommon world of Egyptian mythology (including a musical depiction of the flooding of the River Nile). In his vocal music Rameau deftly switches between Italianate style and the French mode, current in the mid-18th century, allowing the distinguished team of vocal soloists to demonstrate their accomplished talents. Overseen by the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles, and with booklet notes from Thomas Soury, this new recording is an important addition to the Rameau catalogue – the more so in the 250th anniversary year of the composer’s death. It brings to life one of Rameau’s finer, if underrated, compositions, and a dramatic work written on the cusp of important reforms in opera. (Presto Classical) 

Jean-Philippe Rameau originally conceived Les Fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour as a ballet héroïque on the subject of the Egyptian gods. Pragmatically, he later adapted it to celebrate the royal marriage of Louis, Dauphin of France to Maria Josepha of Saxony. This 2014 Glossa release marks the 250th anniversary of Rameau's death, though the music is far from gloomy. Le Concert Spirituel, under the direction of Hervé Niquet, performs the ballet in delightful Baroque style, with rhythmic precision, scintillating ornamentation, and fresh sonorities, and the re-creation of Rameau's score has all the elegance and panache one would expect of a courtly entertainment. The vocal writing is quite florid and fanciful, but the French cast is a joy to hear, even though the mythological libretto is quite stilted and almost nonsensical by modern standards. Recorded in Versailles, the sound is extraordinarily clear, vibrant, and detailed, so audiophiles are in for a treat, even though the format is standard CD. Highly recommended for fans of Baroque theater works. (Blair Sanderson)