Héloïse Gaillard, Stéphanie d’Oustrac and Ensemble Amarillis – Portraits de la Folie (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:18 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Having been relegated to a moral space of exclusion and fear in the Middle Ages, madness subsequently became a major social phenomenon: brought under control and personified as ‘Folly’ in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it provided scope for social and moral criticism, leading composers and librettists to give it a prominent place on the operatic stage. Here Stéphanie d’Oustrac and the Amarillis Ensemble present its multiple facets, from seduction to passionate love, from despair to joy, revealing the underlying truths of humanity in the Baroque era.
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Ensemble Amarillis, Maïlys de Villoutreys, Héloïse Gaillard – Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre: Judith & Sémélé (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:54 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Evidence
Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre was a virtuoso harpsichordist, as well as the author of many pioneering works. She left an abundant output of cantatas, both secular and sacred. Here the soprano Maïlys de Villoutreys, Héloise Gaillard and her Ensemble Amarillis pay tribute to her with the cantatas Judith and Sémélé, inspired by two women, who embody virtue and courage on the one hand, temerity and pride on the other. Whether intimate or more operatic, both works highlight the composer’s innate sense of drama.
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