Accentus, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Laurence Equilbey – David: Le Désert (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:34:09 minutes | 938 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © naïve classique
Il est grand temps que le chef-d’œuvre de Félicien David intègre enfin le répertoire des orchestres français ; certes, l’ouvrage est assez inclassable puisque ni symphonie, ni oratorio, ni mélodame, il emprunte un peu à tous les genres. David considérait Le Désert comme une « ode-symphonie », néologisme qui lui permettait de faire un peu ce qu’il voulait. L’album propose deux versions : l’une avec le narrateur, ce qui en fait un mélodrame, l’autre sans narrateur, ce qui en fait une sorte de symphonie lyrique. Composé en 1844, Le Désert ne manque pas de montrer certains points communs musicaux avec Harold en Italie (1834) mais aussi avec L’Enfance du Christ écrit bien plus tard, en 1854 : pollinisation croisée ? David, qui a passé de longues années en Algérie et en Afrique vers 1832-33, est revenu avec le cerveau rempli à raz bord de tournures orientalisantes, et Le Désert lancera cette nouvelle mode musicale exotique, et nombre de ses œuvres auront pour sujet toutes sortes de contrées lointaines -–dont la musique endémique n’était pas assez connue pour que le public pût réellement en goûter l’authenticité ou pas. Mais chaque morceau caractéristique – le chant du muezzin, la fantaisie arabe, la marche de la caravane, l’hymne à la nuit… – est un petit bijou de caractère. Dès sa création, Le Désert plaça David au firmament des compositeurs de son temps ; et s’il n’est pas un génie du niveau d’un Berlioz (la postérité s’est d’ailleurs chargée de placer chacun sur l’échelle), il mérite mille fois d’être enfin remis à la place d’honneur qui lui est due.
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Accentus, Christophe Grapperon, Eloïse Bella Kohn – Saint-Saëns – Hahn: À la lumière (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 53:21 minutes | 474 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Alpha Classics
Ever since its creation more than twenty-five years ago, the Accentus chamber choir has ardently championed the a cappella repertory: under its conductor and founder Laurence Equilbey, it has produced an impressive discography that sets the benchmark in this music. For this new recording, the first for Alpha, she hands over direction of the ensemble to Christophe Grapperon, its associate conductor since 2013: ‘It can never be said often enough: the a cappella repertory is a Holy Grail of vocal music! It is a sensory experience directly accessible to everyone, but demanding and often atypical for the listener.’ Hahn and Saint-Saëns are on the programme of this album in superb choral works combining simplicity and expressive power, some of which have never been recorded before.
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Accentus, Laurence Equilbey – Gounod: Saint François d’Assise – Liszt: Légende de Sainte Cécile (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 39:17 minutes | 374 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © naïve classique
It might be hard to believe that there could still exist a “discographic world first” when it came to the works of Gounod, and harder still to imagine that it could be such a substantial piece as this. And yet… Saint François d’Assise, a little oratorio in two parts first performed in 1891, has remained obscure up until now, to the point that its very existence has proved something of a surprise. And then all of a sudden, in 1996, the manuscript came back to light quite by accident: and here is its first recording, although several recordings had been made since its rediscovery. Gounod’s last oratorio, of rather more modest proportions than Rédemption or Mors et Vita, with its great unity and flavoursome, carefully-tailored archaisms, conjures up both Franciscan austerity and that fullness of sound for which Gounod had such a knack. According to the composer himself: “I wanted the first of the two tableaux to be a musical translation of that beautiful tableau by Murillo showing Christ on the cross leaning over to St. Francis and putting his arm around his neck. The second tableau would be a translation of that fine work by Giotto, The Death of St Francis, surrounded by his brothers. ” Let the listener be guided by his own lights. The album is rounded off with Hymne à Sainte Cécile, also by Gounod, and then Légende de Sainte Cécile by Liszt, written in 1874; and it should come of no surprise that the work is sung in French: it is, after all, the work’s original language.
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Accentus, Laurence Equilbey – Mozart: Lucio Silla, K. 135 (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:06:37 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Warner Classics presents Mozart’s Luvio Silla, as performed by the Insula Orchestra led by Laurence Equilbey, with soloists Franco Fagioli and Olga Pudova. The three-act Italian opera seria was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at the age of 16, and concerns the Roman dictator Lucio Silla (Lucius Sulla) who lusts after Giunia, the daughter of his enemy Gaius Marius. Giunia, on the other hand, loves the exiled senator Cecilio.
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