Les Arts Florissants, Paul Agnew & Benjamin Alard – J. S. Bach: A Life in Music (Vol. 1). Arnstadt & Mühlhausen (1703-1708), Early Cantatas (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:14 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
With the series “A Life in Music”, Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants invite you to trace the artistic career of Johann Sebastian Bach through his creative periods and places of residence. In the first stage, we discover a young master who continues the tradition of sacred concertos in northern Germany, but already reveals an extremely personal and imaginative style.
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Les Arts Florissants & Paul Agnew – Schütz: Italian Madrigals (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:54 minutes | 1020 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
1611. After two years of study with Gabrieli in Venice, Heinrich Schütz tried his hand at composing madrigals on Italian poems. This mere ‘graduation exercise’ turned out to be a masterpiece: the young German composer demonstrated his ability to identify each nuance of the text with a different musical emotion, a refinement heightened here by the interpretation of Les Arts Florissants.
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Les Arts Florissants, Théotime Langlois de Swarte & William Christie – Haydn: Paris Symphonies – Violin Concerto No. 1 (Live) (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:06:22 minutes | 2,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Commissioned by the Comte d’Ogny for the Le Concert de la Loge Olympique, the ‘Paris’ Symphonies form a key milestone in Haydn’s output.
William Christie and Les Arts Florissants have long loved these highly original works and offer us an exhilaratingly elegant and poetic reading of four of them.
The coupling is the all-too-rarely played Violin Concerto No.1, here directed by the soloist Théotime Langlois de Swarte.
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Les Arts Florissants – M.A. Charpentier: Cæcilia Virgo et Martyr, H.413 – Filius prodigus, H.399 – Magnificat, H.73 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:00:32 minutes | 568 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
If Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Latin oratorios rise up to the summits of French music of the ‘Grand Sicle’, they none the less remain isolated cases. At the time the oratorio was as little appreciated in France as it was extolled in Italy – where, in fact, Charpentier discovered the genre while studying with Carissimi in Rome. In any case, what he did with it went way beyond a mere schoolroom exercise! These three oratorios, composed between 1672 and 1698, are superb examples of Charpentier’s individual qualities: an acute sense of the word and an unprecedented dramatic effectiveness.
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Les Arts Florissants, William Christie, Rachel Ramond, Leo Jemison, Trinity Boys Choir, James Way, Sreten Manojlović – Handel: L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:41:56 minutes | 1,87 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
L’Allegro … ist eine Mischform aus Oratorium, Ode und Serenade und gehört zu den rätselhaftesten Werken von Händel, aber auch zu seinen genialsten! Mit der für sie typischen Poesie laden uns William Christie und Les Arts Florissants zur Wiederentdeckung dieses Meisterwerks ein, in dem der Komponist Metaphysik in Malerei verwandelt und Gedanken in reinste Emotionen.
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Les Arts Florissants & William Christie – In an Italian Garden: Aria, Cantatas & Madrigals (Live) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:36 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
The six young singers of the Academy of Le Jardin des Voix, selected from several hundred candidates, offer us a musical journey through some of the finest pieces in the Italian repertory, from a Banchieri madrigal to Haydn’s Orlando paladino. Thanks to an outstanding training programme and the musical values transmitted by William Christie and Paul Agnew, here is a chance to discover both some splendid vocal gems and a group of new performers who honour them with talent, grace and humour. Sheer delight!
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Les Arts Florissants and Paul Agnew – Gesualdo: Madrigali, Libri primo & secondo (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:21:39 minutes | 802 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Much gossip has surrounded the double murder committed by Carlo Gesualdo, who killed his young wife and her lover when he caught them in flagrante delicto. The remorse he felt for this atrocious crime is said to have inspired the Neapolitan composer to write new harmonies, using and abusing scraping and characterful chromatisms. Paul Agnew takes aim at this widespread belief, contending that “this aristocratic double murder only indirectly influenced the musician’s life.” In a very interesting introductory text, the “Associate Musical Director” of the Arts Florissants sets the figure of Gesualdo back into his historical context, explaining just how his tormented psychological state would have fed into his own musical evolution, alongside the musical journeys of his peers. The same line of argument is also made by musicologist Denis Morrier in his analysis of the two first Books of Madrigals, which are presented here: “At once visionary and conservative, eccentric in language and conventional in form, these works have fascinated musicians and commentators across the ages”, he writes.
Following the recording of 17 madrigals from Book IV to Book VI, conducted by William Christie in 1988, this new album marks the first stage of a complete recording of Gesualdo’s Madrigals, which are to be performed across three seasons at the Philharmonie de Paris. Passionate, violent, dark and burning with meaning, Gesualdo’s music touches the heart and speaks to us of the doubts and contradictions of the human soul.
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Les Arts Florissants & William Christie – Si vous vouliez un jour…airs serieux et à boire, Vol. 2 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:40 minutes | 1,29 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
As the first of a series of publications that aim to celebrate forty years of the “Arts Flo” founded by William Christie in 1979, this new album, recorded at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2016, is made up of “serious songs and “drinking songs” from France in the 17th century. Following the filming of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, performed at the Salzburg Festival 2018, and the ambitious complete recording of Carlo Gesualdo’s Madrigaux conducted by Paul Agnew, who is little by little taking over as the ensemble’s conductor, new editions are returning towards harmonia mundi, the “historic” publisher of the Arts Florissants and their founder.
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Les Arts Florissants & William Christie – Rameau: Platée (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:14:05 minutes | 2,73 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
A marsh nymph thinks she is so irresistible that Jupiter himself will take an interest in her… Brimming with exceptional dramatic and musical verve, this strangely under-recorded ‘ballet bouffon’ offers us Rameau’s art in a nutshell: glittering orchestration, harmonies and rhythms of unprecedented modernity. William Christie and his comrades plunge with delight into what is one of its composer’s most fascinating works.
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Les Arts Florissants & William Christie – Monteverdi: L’incoronazione di Poppea (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 03:06:32 minutes | 3,27 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
An echo of the luxuriant performance at the 2018 Salzburg Festival, where this recording was made, this new version of the Coronation of Poppea by Claudio Monteverdi, conducted by William Christie (who had already recorded the piece once before, at a concert in Madrid, with production by Pier-Luigi Pizzi, in 2010) met with unanimous acclaim thanks to its exceptional musical execution. A distribution to die for, dominated by Sonja Yoncheva’s voluptuous interpretation of the titular role, and fabulous instrumentation from the Arts Florissants, led by Christie, with no fancy tricks, from the vantage point of his harpsichord. These ingredients all add up to a very high quality production to mark the fortieth anniversary of the ensemble, which was founded in 1979.
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Les Arts Florissants & William Christie – Le Jardin De Monsieur Rameau (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:21:01 minutes | 1,57 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
“Le Jardin de Monsieur Rameau,” the second recording by Les Editions Arts Florissants, was released in April 2014 as part of the commemorations of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s death.
These recordings reprise the program of French music given for the 2013 Jardin des Voix, performed by William Christie and six soloists from the sixth edition of the Arts Florissants Academy for young singers.
From Rameau to Dauvergne via Campra, the musicians invite us on a promenade through the vocal art of the French Enlightenment.
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Xavier de Maistre, Les Arts Florissants, William Christie – La Harpe Reine: Concertos for Harp at the Court of Marie-Antoinette (Live) (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:10:08 minutes | 731 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Mention Marie Antoinette, and inevitably the guillotine springs to mind – one is less likely to think of the harp, which, according to courtiers’ accounts from the end of the Ancien Régime, she played admirably.
Thanks to Louis XVI’s queen and to her Austrian origins, a whole new and deliciously refined repertoire saw the light of day in Versailles, a repertoire that subsequently became known throughout Europe. To celebrate their first musical partnership, William Christie and Xavier de Maîstre have undertaken to revive these splendid works in a program full of charm and surprises. Audiences will discover Les Arts Florissants playing an unexpected collection of concertante pieces by Jean-Baptiste Krumpholz, Johann David Hermann and Joseph Haydn on authentic late 18th-century instruments.
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Les Arts Florissants, William Christie – J.S. Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 (Live) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:45:00 minutes | 1,01 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
The Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists are renowned of their spectacular performances of Bach’s epic masterpiece, which they have toured extensively.
During their last tour (in Munich, Frankfurt, Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence and Paris) there was a stampede for tickets and they performed every night in full houses, to spellbound audiences.
This album is the culmination of the tour: it was recorded in an open session in London, and captures the special atmosphere of the concerts
It is presented in a 2-CD casebook and contains a booklet featuring original notes by John Eliot Gardiner translated in English, German and French.
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Les Arts Florissants & William Christie – Handel: Music for Queen Caroline (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:12:15 minutes | 1,37 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
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.
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Les Arts Florissants & William Christie – Bien que l’amour…airs sérieux et à boire (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:03 minutes | 1,43 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
With this anthology of airs sérieux and airs à boire of the Grand Siècle, Les Arts Florissants launches a new series on harmonia mundi. We may listen to the tracks on this disc as contemporaries turned the pages of successful collections of songs alternating between invocations to Bacchus and invitations to love. Around William Christie at the harpsichord and his musicians, five singers offer multiple combinations of close-knit voices. From the intimacy of the salons to the liveliness of court banquets, these airs, models of refined skill, make light of the paradoxes of our hearts – for as an air by Lambert tells us: ‘Though Love creates all my grief, / I wish to love and to die loving.’
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