Sabine Devieilhe / Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon BACH - HANDEL

 

BACH - HANDEL

 

Sabine Devieilhe / Alexandre Tharaud CHANSON D'AMOUR

CHANSON D'AMOUR

Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon LIBERTÀ!

                                                                  LIBERTÀ!

Alexandre Tharaud VERSAILLES

                                                                   VERSAILLES

Alexis Kossenko / Anna Reinhold / Emmanuel Olivier SOIR PAÏEN

                                                                      SOIR PAÏEN

Sabine Devieilhe / Lea Desandre / Le Concert d'Astrée / Emmanuelle Haïm HANDEL Italian Cantatas

Although Handel was destined to become the most illustrious representative of Italian opera of his era, he actually spent very little time in Italy. However, it was during one of his brief trips that he composed most of his cantatas aimed at a select local private audience. The cantata differs from an operatic aria because although it is composed of several pieces (sacred or profane) it theoretically has no theatrical or dramatic characteristics. This form flourished in particular in the baroque era in response to the new vogue for “domestic” concerts. Handel composed approximately sixty cantatas, mostly for the female voice. But a leopard cannot change its spots and the form inevitably takes on a theatrical aspect in this musician’s hands.

Surprisingly, the cantatas that Handel wrote in the earlier years of his career remain relatively little known. The thrilling theatricality of three works composed in Italy – Armida abbandonata, La Lucrezia and Aminta e Fillide is savoured to the full by conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, soprano Sabine Devieilhe, mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and the instrumentalists of Le Concert d’Astrée.

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France / Mikko Franck DEBUSSY L'Enfant Prodigue - RAVEL L'Enfant Et Les Sortilèges

Recorded live in Paris, two contrasting music dramas on the theme of an errant child, written by two supreme French composers and performed by a starry line-up of francophone singers. Mikko Franck, in his role as Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, conducts Debussy’s L’Enfant prodigue, starring Roberto Alagna and Karina Gauvin, and Ravel’s L'Enfant et les sortilèges, with Nathalie Stutzmann and Sabine Devieilhe among the singers surrounding Chloé Briot in the role of the Child.

Complementing the two vocal works is the world premiere recording, made under studio conditions, of British composer Colin Matthews’ orchestration of Debussy’s Symphony in B minor. The work, which survives only as a manuscript for piano duet, was composed even earlier than L’Enfant prodigue, when Debussy was just 18, but it was not published until 1933, 15 years after his death. This orchestration of the Symphony in B minor was first heard in 2009. Colin Matthews is something of a Debussy specialist, having made admired orchestral transcriptions of all the composer’s piano Préludes, some of which have been recorded by Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker. (Warner Classics)

Sabine Devieilhe RAMEAU Le Grand Théâtre De L'Amour

My connection with the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau dates back five years. I had just sung Aricie’s famous ‘Rossignols amoureux’ in a student concert at the conservatory when Alexis tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I would like to take part in a performance project involving the composer in whom he specialised. Alexis is well known as a flautist, a young conductor and musicologist and has done research which really brings to light the astonishing range of Rameau’s work. 

This programme is conceived along the lines of a small-scale opera, giving me a broad range of colours to choose from and highly demanding instru- mentation with which to work in the dramatic role of tearful lover. I can’t thank Alexis and Les Ambassadeurs enough for having seen the project through and for giving all their energy and musical creativity in the service of this recording. (Sabine Devieilhe)

The operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau, vast spectacles, may be lost to history in their original forms. Sure, some of them have been produced in the modern era, but no company could muster the combination of singers, instrumentalists, choreography, and costume and scene design that would have accompanied the originals. The closest might be this release by French soprano Sabine Devieilhe, which is a thrill from start to finish. The album simply has it all. Devieilhe's voice is a knockout, and a deceptive one at that: it comes in as a flutelike thing in the mid-range but then scores with an agile top that seems absolutely undaunted by acrobatic vocal writing. The work of the historical-instrument orchestra Les Ambassadeurs under Alexis Kossenko is technically superb and dramatically sharp; they convey the feeling of playing for real theatergoers. The music covers selections from some operas with hugely ambitious themes, and there are three world-premiere recordings. Sample the storm aria from Les Indes Galantes (The Gallant Indians), track 17, with its wind machine and its colorful vocal canvas, for a taste of an immensely satisfying recital by a new face on the scene who makes you wonder just how far she'll eventually go. (James Manheim)

Sabine Devieilhe MIRAGES

This album came about through my desire to record Lakmé, a role that has been very dear to my heart since I first performed it on stage in 2012. It’s a part of which I know and love every single bar. 

For the character of Lakmé, Léo Delibes composed some of the most beautiful music ever written for coloratura soprano. His artistic approach was essentially a French one in that he always made the voice the centre of attention, with an orchestration that is at times diaphanous (when the heroine recites a prayer) and at times dazzling (in the great love duets). It was this work that sparked my love for French nineteenth-century opera. But Lakmé also came about within the context of European artists becoming more open to influences from distant lands. Western ears were at that time keen to be taken on musical and poetic journeys, and people were increasingly receptive to perfumes from afar.

This collection explores the dream of the East cultivated by Delibes and later by Maurice Delage, who actually went on an extended visit to India and brought back with him the modal colours of Indian music. It also touches on Japan and China, as seen through the prism of Messager’s Madame Chrysanthème and Stravinsky’s Rossignol, and Egypt, with the incantation sung by La Charmeuse in Thaïs. The element of fantasy also takes on a more folk-like and popular dimension, with settings by Ambroise Thomas and Berlioz of Ophelia’s strange song. With his music for Mélisande and Ariel, both of whom use their voices to sing and to charm, Debussy uses the exoticism of the modal scale to disconcert the listener and evoke an unspecified faraway place. 

So, ‘far from the real world’, as Lakmé says before her ‘Liebestod’, like the fantasy image of a distant country – let us indulge an innocent pleasure, and dream... (Sabine Devieilhe, 2017)

Tharaud plays RACHMANINOV

French pianist Alexandre Tharaud takes on the blockbuster 'Rach 2' concerto in a thrilling performance with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Russian maestro Alexander Vedernikov. It is coupled with more intimate Rachmaninov for piano six-hands (for which Alexandre is flanked by Alexander Melnikov and Aleksandar Madžar) and the icing on the cake: a sublime Vocalise in the original version for voice and piano, with pure-voiced French soprano Sabine Devieilhe. 

Alexandre Tharaud's recorded catalogue is large and eclectic, but this is the first time he has devoted an entire album to Russian repertoire – specifically to the music of Sergei Rachmaninov. 'I was still quite young when I first played this concerto' explains Tharaud. 'I adored it... Rachmaninov's virtuosity really appeals to young pianists. Today, of course I'm still enthralled by the concerto's virtuosity, but now I'm more interested in its dark shadows: the sense of despair, of staring into the abyss. My interpretation of Rachmaninov has changed a lot over the years.' (Warner Classics)

Pygmalion / Raphaël Pichon JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Köthener Trauermusik BWV 244a

The Ensemble Pygmalion directed by Raphaël Pichon commences its collaboration with Harmonia Mundi with this new recording of J.S. Bach’s lost music to the Köthener Trauermusik (Cöthen funeral music), BWV 244a.
Founded in 2006 at the European Bach Festival, Ensemble Pygmalion is a combination of choir and orchestra - all young performers with experience of authentic instruments and period-informed performance. Its repertoire concentrates primarily on Johann Sebastian Bach and Jean-Philippe Rameau. It does however play baroque music and also contemporary works. For this recording there are four vocal soloists. Pygmalion numbers seventeen singers and twenty-four orchestral players.
The work Köthener Trauermusik (Cöthen funeral music), BWV 244a also known as the Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt (Cry, children, cry to all the world) was composed in 1729 for the state funeral of Leopold, Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen who had died a few days prior to his thirty-four birthday. Almost five years earlier Bach served as Kapellmeister to the Prince at the Cöthen court between 1717/23. Two works were performed at the funeral service at the St. Jakobskirche, Cöthen but the music has not survived. First was mourning music heard on the evening of 23 March 1729 for the arrival at the church of the funeral cortège for entombment. The details of this music are not known but it is documented that “the mourning music was heard for some time.” It has been put forward by leading Bach scholar Peter Wollny in the booklet essay that the music is likely to have been instrumental but augmented by congregational singing.
The music for the next morning’s funeral service on 24 March was a large-scale cantata the Köthener Trauermusik (Cöthen funeral music), BWV 244a. Those participating were Bach, his wife Anna Magdalena and his son Wilhelm Friedemann plus musicians from neighbouring towns and cities. No music has survived, only the libretto to the four-part cantata in twenty-four sections prepared by Leipzig poet and librettist Christian Friedrich Henrici, known as Picander. Thanks to the work of musicologist Wilhelm Rust in 1873 it is now thought probable that Bach reused ten movements (nine arias and the final chorus) from his St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244 designed as part of the Good Friday Vespers for Thomaskirche, Leipzig. Another musicologist Friedrich Smend concluded in 1951 that for sections 1 and 7 Bach reused the opening and closing choruses from his Trauerode, BWV 198, a work composed for the funeral of Princess Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Queen of Poland and Electress of Saxony. (Arkiv Music)

Ophélie Gaillard ALVORADA

Alvorada or the invitation to the voyage of cellist Ophélie Gaillard and her magical cello, a musical tour from Spain to Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Cuba) featuring, in particular, the composers Villa-Lobos, Granados, Piazzolla and Jobim. In an exceptional mixture of classical pieces and arrangements of the greatest themes of this intense music, the cello sings with the bandoneon, dances with the piano, guitar or percussion, and abandons itself in amorous intimacy with the voices. Alvorada immerses us in a sound universe where the feverish energy of the rhythms of this Hispanic and South-American music entrances us and from which a sensual nostalgia responds to a dizzying tango. All the senses are aroused when hearing these spellbinding songs and rhythms. The colour of the sun, from dawn to dusk, is found in the clever alternation of these enchanting, universal pieces. All the exceptional musicians (Sabine Devieilhe, Toquinho, Sandra Rumolino, Juanjo Mosalini, Rudi Flores, Emmanuel Rossfelder, Gabriel Sivak…) participating in the Alvorada voyage hypnotize and fascinate us, allowing us to accompany them at every instant in the progression of this dream proposed by Ophélie Gaillard.

Sabine Devieilhe MOZART The Weber Sisters

The Weber Sisters is rooted in Mozart’s life story and includes music inspired by Aloysia, Konstanze and Josepha Weber, three soprano sisters whom Mozart first met in the German city of Mannheim in 1777, when he was 21. Though he initially fell in love with Aloysia, who went on to become a celebrated diva, it was Konstanze who became his wife; she outlived him by nearly 50 years and did much to sustain and build his reputation after his death. The programme comprises songs, operatic and concert arias and orchestral numbers, and Sabine Devieilhe’s interpretations are typified by beauty of tone, a penetrating sense of drama and a scrupulous respect for the score and the text. Three of the highlights are: the concert aria ‘Popoli di Tessaglia’ – written for Aloysia – which rises to spectacular heights (specifically, the G two-and-a-half octaves above middle C); the sublime ‘Et incarnatus est’ from the C minor Mass – premiered in Salzburg by Konstanze, and ‘Der Hölle Rache’, written for Josepha as the second fireworks-filled aria of the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte, a role that has brought triumphs for Sabine Devieilhe at the opera houses of Lyon and Paris. Her colleagues on this album are the Ensemble Pygmalion, the keyboard player Arnaud de Pasquale and the conductor Raphaël Pichon. (Warner Classics)