François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles, Vannina Santoni, Julien Behr, Alexandre Duhamel, Marie-Ange Todorovitch, Jean Teitgen, Chœur de l’Opéra de Lille – Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles, Vannina Santoni, Julien Behr, Alexandre Duhamel, Marie-Ange Todorovitch, Jean Teitgen, Chœur de l'Opéra de Lille - Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles, Vannina Santoni, Julien Behr, Alexandre Duhamel, Marie-Ange Todorovitch, Jean Teitgen, Chœur de l’Opéra de Lille – Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:37:54 minutes | 2,59 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Chief conductor of Les Siècles symphony orchestra, François-Xavier Roth has been revisiting French music from the beginning of the 20th century for several years now, taking care to honour both the original instruments and to find melodies that favour even greater clarity of timbre and attack. After his incredible recordings of Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky’s first work (special mention to the superb complete version of L’Oiseau de feu), everyone naturally expected the conductor to perform Pelléas et Mélisande, the opera he conducted at the very beginning of his career which is particularly close to his heart.
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Gürzenich-Orchester Köln & François-Xavier Roth – Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4 (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Gürzenich-Orchester Köln & François-Xavier Roth – Schumann: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 4 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:16 minutes | 979 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Myrios Classics

The Gürzenich Orchestra and its chief conductor François-Xavier Roth dedicate their first release on myrios classics to two symphonies by Robert Schumann. The album is based on live recordings made at Cologne’s Philharmonie.

In 1841, Robert Schumann finally had the breakthrough he had long dreamed of as an orchestral composer. He created no less than two works that year: his first, the »Spring Symphony«, and a piece he originally conceived as a »Symphonistic Fantasy« and which later turned into his Symphony in D-minor.

The »Spring Symphony« was written in the coldest depth of winter. It is a work of longing which knows only one direction: growth, blossoming, forging a path towards light and new life. The Symphony No. 4 in D-minor, on the other hand, seems far more shadowy and personal, »a work created from the depths of the soul«, as Clara Schumann confided in her diary. The audience, however, failed to warm to the impetuous work, leading Robert Schumann to put it aside in resignation after the first performance. Only ten years later, he revised the work, which then appeared as his Fourth Symphony.

This album combines the »Spring Symphony« with the first version of the Symphony in D-minor – a version preferred by several of Schumann’s friends, including Johannes Brahms. During Schumann’s lifetime, however, it was never performed again. It was the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne which gave its next performance in 1889, under the baton of Gürzenich kapellmeister Franz Wüllner.

François-Xavier Roth also prefers the original version of 1841. »In its sparser instrumentation, it is more radical, demanding extreme dedication from all of us.«

“Schumann at his best!” (F.A.Z.)

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Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, François-Xavier Roth – Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 (First Version, 1873) (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/192kHz]

Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, François-Xavier Roth – Bruckner: Symphony No. 3 (First Version, 1873) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 01:01:45 minutes | 2,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Myrios Classics

Bruckner’s Third – a creative history that is unique even for the great Austrian romantic. No other of his symphonies has been revised, reshaped and reissued more often. Yet the first version from 1873, which François-Xavier Roth has chosen for this recording, bristles with boldness and the joy of experimentation. Here, the reminiscence of Beethoven’s Ninth and the works of the dedicatee Richard Wagner is almost tangible.

With this recording, François-Xavier Roth and the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln continue the highly acclaimed Bruckner Symphonies cycle and, with great attention to detail, once again present the “unvarnished” Bruckner, groundbreaking, virtuosic and refined.

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Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Saint-Saëns: Symphonic Poems – Le Carnaval des animaux – L’Assassinat du duc de Guise (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Saint-Saëns: Symphonic Poems – Le Carnaval des animaux – L’Assassinat du duc de Guise (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:33:02 minutes | 1,68 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles offer us a double-sided portrait of Saint-Saëns here. On one side, some of the most fascinating symphonic poems of French Romanticism are revealed in all the shimmering timbres of the period. On the other, we rediscover a composer who enjoyed a good laugh (The Carnival of the Animals also returns to its original colours!), when he was not involved in the early days of the cinema, with the very first music ever composed for a film!

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ligeti: Six Bagatelles, Chamber Concerto & Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet (Live) (Remastered) (2016/2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ligeti: Six Bagatelles, Chamber Concerto & Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet (Live) (Remastered) (2016/2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 44:02 minutes | 449 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Ligeti’s interest in sonorities and instrumental timbres is well known. François-Xavier Roth and the musicians of Les Siècles, themselves true alchemists of sounds and colours, recorded shimmering interpretations of these three works in 2016, displaying unprecedented clarity and naturalness, and also tremendous humour. They have been superbly remastered for this reissue.

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François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles – Ravel: L’Heure espagnole – Bolero (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles – Ravel: L’Heure espagnole – Bolero (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:34 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Continuing their exploration of Ravel’s output, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles offer us two works linked by his love of Spain. Alongside the famous Bolero, which regains its original flavour here on period instruments, is Ravel’s first opera, which flirted with libertinism: though its outstanding cast consists entirely of native French-speakers, this caustic ‘Hour’ remains quintessentially Spanish!

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major “Titan” (Hamburg-Weimar 1893-94 Version) (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D Major “Titan” (Hamburg-Weimar 1893-94 Version) (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 57:04 minutes | 512 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Gustav Mahler was not yet thirty years old when he mounted the podium to conduct his ‘Symphonic Poem’ (Sinfonische Dichtung) in the Large Hall of the Redoute (Vigadó) in Budapest on 20 November 1889. The young man, who had recently been appointed director of the Hungarian capital’s opera house, was presenting an orchestral composition for the first time that evening. This work, which Mahler thought would be ‘child’s play’, was in fact – as he was to admit years later – “one of [his] boldest.” It is the crystallisation of his childhood, marked by the successive deaths of his brothers and sisters but also by the brutality of his father. The work also embodies the dreams that this rebellious young student at the Vienna Conservatory had already forged some ten years earlier, with the new generation of artists and thinkers of which he was a member.

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Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 “avec orgue” & Piano Concerto No. 4 (Remastered Edition) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 “avec orgue” & Piano Concerto No. 4 (Remastered Edition) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:20 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Les Siècles is one of France’s finest early music ensembles, and its work in repertoire from the Baroque era to the Romantic period is fascinating for its precision, attention to historical details, and most of all, commitment to original instrumentation.

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Les Siècles, Ensemble Aedes, François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé (Live) (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Les Siècles, Ensemble Aedes, François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé (Live) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 54:59 minutes | 889 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

‘The arrival of an orchestra like Les Siècles on the harmonia mundi label is entirely logical: ever since it was founded by François-Xavier Roth in 2003, its musicians (mostly belonging to the new generation) have succeeded in placing several centuries of musical creation in perspective by playing the works they tackle on precisely the instruments used at the time of their premiere – without the slightest concession. The result is quite simple dazzling: never, since it was first heard, has Daphnis et Chloé displayed such a shimmering sound, revealing an infinity of details without ever losing sight of the subtle beauty of the most French of the great ‘Ballets Russes’.‘At this moment in the history of music, Ravel raised the French “Impressionist” orchestral style to a sort of apogee – in a sense it is the last great comédie-ballet in the history of French music’ (François-Xavier Roth).

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye, Le tombeau de Couperin & Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye, Le tombeau de Couperin & Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 56:21 minutes | 493 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Recording Ravel’s music on period instruments is the kind of thing that might raise a smile… until you realise just how much the production of instruments has changed in less than a hundred years: it’s the return of catgut strings, skin drum heads, the French basson (and not the German system bassoon which is used across all the world’s orchestras today), shaper tips, trumpets and trombones of French manufacture. At the head of his orchestra Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth gives a new, orthodox, historically-informed version of Ma Mère l’oye (complete ballet), the Tombeau de Couperin and Shéhérazade, the long-neglected “ouverture de féérie” [Fairy Overture] which is pure Ravel. This return to the roots is clearly easier and more straightforwardly authentic for this period of music history, because, unlike earlier works, we possess recordings which date back to the 1920s, and even earlier, which can tell us about the style, the colours, the phrasing and the tempo.

But it isn’t enough just to have all this historical information to hand to make something interesting. What makes this record thrilling is that all the musicians in the Siècles are excellent, and François-Xavier Roth is a talented artist himself, who knows this music inside out. At which point, his complete recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird has already struck us with its quality. This rediscovery of Ravel resounds with clarity and finesse; it is a feast of well-defined timbres which cuts against the “beautiful sound” which prevails in orchestras around the world today.  –  François Hudry

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: La Valse – Mussorgsky: Les Tableaux d’une exposition (Orch. Ravel) (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: La Valse – Mussorgsky: Les Tableaux d’une exposition (Orch. Ravel) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 44:06 minutes | 407 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Toscanini regarded this orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition as a genuine treatise on instrumentation, on a par with that of Berlioz: scored for the same instrumental forces as La Valse, Ravel’s version quickly established itself ahead of all the many competing orchestrations of Mussorgsky’s piano suite! In François-Xavier Roth’s view, La Valse and the Pictures together represent the peak of the composer’s output for the symphony orchestra of his time – that is to say, as the musicians of Les Siècles reconstruct it for us today. What a joy to get back to the original colours of this music!

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Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth – Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 – Gossec – Symphonie à dix-sept parties (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth – Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 – Gossec – Symphonie à dix-sept parties (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 54:29 minutes | 543 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

This release, part of harmonia mundi’s series celebrating the Beethoven year, pairs the composer’s iconic and much-loved Symphony No.5 with the far less well-known Symphony In 17 Parts by Francois-Joseph Gossec. The dramatic power and intensity of Beethoven stands in sharp contrast to to the cheerful and gallant music of Gossec. Les Siècles, led by François-Xavier Roth, apply their usual virtuosity and keen insight to both works in performances that are sure to delight.

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 – Méhul: Les Amazones: Overture (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 – Méhul: Les Amazones: Overture (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 54:12 minutes | 505 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Continuing their exploration of Beethoven’s Symphonies, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles give us an opportunity to rediscover the Eroica in all its modernity and power. Thanks to the magic of period timbres, Beethoven’s intended instrumental balances and effects are restored in revelatory fashion. The Overture to Méhul’s opera Les Amazones, written eight years later, will be a discovery for many listeners. This time it was a French composer who established a further milestone in the new aesthetic of Romanticism.

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Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Debussy: Jeux, Nocturnes, Prélude à l’aprés midi d’un faune (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/44,1kHz]

Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Debussy: Jeux, Nocturnes, Prélude à l’aprés midi d’un faune (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 50:52 minutes | 457 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

The originality of this recording (which presents works that are, in fact, rather common) comes from the orchestra Les Siècles playing on periodic instruments, in this case from the period in which Debussy wrote these masterpieces. This is particularly relevant for woodwinds and brass, whose mechanisms and sounds around 1900 were very different – more incisive perhaps, and undoubtedly more differentiated – which for music like Debussy’s offers a real plus in the orchestral balance. Moreover, the number of strings remains reasonable, this way the woodwind is never swallowed up as it often is with large international orchestras. The listener will be able to hear this music as Debussy heard it, or at least how he would have liked to have heard it because in his time orchestras and conductors did not always have a clear understanding of his style or the infinite colours on his palette.

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London Symphony Orchestra & François-Xavier Roth – The Panufnik Legacies III (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

London Symphony Orchestra & François-Xavier Roth – The Panufnik Legacies III (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:53 minutes | 1,18 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © LSO Live

An album of new works by ten emerging composers. The pieces – originally commissioned as part of the LSO Panufnik Scheme – were recorded in LSO St Luke’s and are now presented on disc, enabling the LSO to share and promote the composers’ music world-wide. The LSO Panufnik Scheme began in 2005 and each year offers six composers the opportunity to write a 3 minute piece for the LSO. This recording showcases the works of selected composers from across the first five years of the scheme, representing the eclectic range of styles and influences of the 45 composers who have now worked with the Orchestra through this scheme.

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