Les Arts Florissants / William Christie CHARPENTIER La Descente D'Orphée aux Enfers

LA DESCENTE D'ORPHÉE AUX ENFERS

Les Arts Florissants / William Christie LAMBERT Airs de Cour

AIRS DE COUR

Les Arts Florissants / William Christie MONTEVERDI L'incoronazione di Poppea

                                                   L'INCORONAZIONE DI POPPEA

Les Arts Florissants 40 ANS

Dedicated to the performance of Baroque music for the last 40 years, Les Arts Florissants never cease unearthing new repertoire, much of which is rated among the finest musical achievements in the cultural life of France (Lully, de Lalande, Charpentier, Rameau), Italy (Monteverdi, Rossi) and England (Purcell, Handel) - a legacy they have made available to musicians and ensembles worldwide.

Whether intended for church services, for theatre stages or for royal entertainment, here are some of the choicest musical gems, ranging from the legendary recording of Atys to the most recent collections of airs and madrigals, to list but a few.

Nearly every musical chapter in the story of the ensemble made history and, along with hours of pure pleasure, this retrospective is sure to bring back fond memories of your first encounter with Les Arts Florissants, who have become a pillar of our collective cultural life.

Les Arts Florissants / Paul Agnew LES MAÎTRES DU MOTET

A sophisticated composer, Brossard also left his mark thanks to the extraordinary collection of music manuscripts he amassed over the course of his life. Preserved for posterity when he catalogued and handed it over to the royal library in 1724, the compendium contains an impressive number of musical gems like the Requiem by Bouteiller, which Brossard counted among the best Mass settings in his possession. Focusing on the work of these French masters, Paul Agnew has fashioned a program exploring the role of cathedral and chapel choirs during the reign of Louis XIV.

Les Arts Florissants / William Christie LE JARDIN DE MONSIEUR RAMEAU

This ebullient release makes an ideal introduction to the French music of the middle 18th century, which is very easy to kill off with stodgy performances. The title Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau has several connotations. It refers to the musical surroundings of the preeminent composer of the day, Jean-Philippe Rameau, and to Le Jardin des Voix, an ensemble of young singers connected with the French Baroque specialist ensemble Les Arts Florissants and its American-French director, William Christie. Yet again the title alludes to a garden where the present program was performed live, and which is the subject of a booklet-length prose piece, included, by French fiction writer Adrien Goetz. The live performance was partially staged, but it transfers quite well to the recorded medium, with its various sound effects intact and the enthusiasm of the young singers admirably putting the music across. Devotees of this music will be interested to hear the new generations of performers coming down the pike. Those with some familiarity will enjoy the presence of some little-known music by the likes of Antoine Dauvergne and Nicolas Racot de Grandval along with Rameau and Gluck. And nearly all listeners will enjoy the coherent scenes that allow the development of the characters, who are in several memorable cases comic ones. Hear Grandval's satirical portrayal of an overambitious performer (track 6). The live sound is unusually good, and the whole production testifies to the continuing creativity of one of the legendary Baroque historical-performance groups. Highly recommended. (James Manheim)

Les Arts Florissants / William Christie HANDEL Music for Queen Caroline

Queen Caroline was an emblematic female figure of the eighteenth century. The wife of King George II of England, Caroline of Ansbach was a woman of great beauty, a supporter of the arts and sciences, and also a friend and protector of Handel.

It was Handel who was commissioned to compose the ceremonial music that accompanied her reign—“The King Shall Rejoice” played at her and George’s coronation, the “Queen Caroline” Te Deum, written for her arrival in England, and also “The Ways of Zion do Mourn,” composed for her funeral.

In this recording which, for the first time, brings together these three works illustrating the very strong link between the queen and her chosen artist, the choir and orchestra of Les Arts Florissants, whose ranks were enlarged for the occasion, bring back to life music that is at once flamboyant and poignantly human.

Natalie Dessay BAROQUE

Baroque repertoire has always played a part in Natalie Dessay’s stellar career. She first started singing it in 1999, after meeting Emmanuelle Haïm during rehearsals for Alcina at the Opera de Paris - Palais Garnier. Erato presents this double CD containing a full portrait of Natalie Dessay singing baroque music, including sacred repertoire (Bach cantatas, Magnificat, Handel: Dixit Dominus) and opera (Handel: Giulio Cesare or Rameau: Les Indes Galantes) – mainly under the baton of Emmanuelle Haïm who she formed a baroque ‘double-act’ with for over a decade. As Emmanuelle Haïm writes in the booklet: “We performed Bach, Monteverdi, Handel and Rameau on stage as well as on recordings. Natalie is a wonderful interpreter of this music, as she always is, graceful and with a unique inspiration”.

Les Arts Florissants / William Christie DELALANDE Petits Motets

An ensemble of singers and instrumentalists specialized in the performance of Baroque music on period instruments, Les Arts Florissants are renowned the world over. Founded in 1979 by the Franco-American harpsichordist and conductor William Christie, the Ensemble, named for a short opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, has played a pioneering role in the revival of a Baroque repertoire that had long been neglected (including the rediscovery of countless treasures in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France). Today that repertoire is widely performed and admired: not only French music from the reign of Louis XIV, but also more generally European music of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Ensemble is directed by William Christie who, since 2007, has regularly passed the conductor’s baton over to British tenor Paul Agnew.

Each season Les Arts Florissants give around 100 concerts and opera performances in France—at the Philharmonie de Paris, where they are artists in residence, the Théâtre de Caen, the Opéra Comique, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Château de Versailles, as well as at numerous festivals—and are an active ambassador for French culture abroad, being regularly invited to New York, London, Edinburgh, Brussels, Vienna, Salzburg, Madrid, Barcelona, Moscow, and elsewhere.