Monumental! Lavishly conceived, superlative 15-CD Boxset with 160-page (French, English) booklet, a dream come true!!!! François Bayle's itinerary spans over five decades through which music was able to renovate its material through a sensible use of technology. The terms of Musique Concrète, Electroacoustics or Acousmatics, as conveniently proposed by François Bayle, ultimately explore a similar artistic approach: a creative and expressive work on recorded sound. This last half-century saw many major technical mutations and François Bayle - in the fertile context of the Grm seized the right opportunities, often initiating them through his function as director, so as to renovate and update creativity to serve what he called the Light Speed Sound.
Alpha presents the reissue of Ensemble Pygmalions version of Dardanus, conducted by Raphaël Pichon and recorded in the majestic acoustics of the Opéra Royal at Versailles Palace. This set won multiple awards on its first release: Rameau, a flinty-hearted composer lacking in imagination? Rameau, a cold mathematician in his chord progressions and a severe draughtsman in his vocal lines? One need only listen, in Dardanus, to the melancholy laments of Princess Iphise, splendidly sung by the soprano Gaëlle Arquez, to realise the treasures of tenderness and invention that still remained in the youthful heart of the fifty-six-year-old composer! . . . This version, which fills an important gap in the discography, possesses all the assets needed to speak to us today, and to last.
Exploring 20th-century repertoire – both acknowledged masterpieces and new discoveries – this 14-CD anthology reflects the diverse aesthetic strands of Pierre Boulez’s programming over the course of his ground-breaking and influential career. These Erato recordings, made between 1966 and 1992, feature composers otherwise absent from Boulez’s discography – Xenakis, Donatoni, Grisey, Dufourt, Ferneyhough, Harvey and Höller – and the first CD release of the interpretation of Stravinsky’s incantatory Les Soucoupes in the version for female voices and four horns.
‘One evening I paid a visit to the Opéra. There I saw Les Danaïdes, by Salieri. The gorgeous splendour of the spectacle, the rich fullness of the orchestra and the chorus, the wonderful voice and pathetic charm of Madame Branchu, Dérivis’s rugged power […] filled me with an excitement and enthusiasm that I cannot attempt to describe.’ Thus Berlioz related his encounter with one of the most revolutionary operas of the ancient régime, written by an eminent pupil of Gluck, Antonio Salieri. Feeling the stirrings of early Romanticism, the latter imbued the tragic fate of Hypermnestra with pathos and vehemence such as were rarely attained even by his teacher. The horrible plot fomented by Danaus with his daughters, the Danaids, takes us from palatial splendour to the sinister darkness of a secret temple, and finally to the Underworld itself, where a vulture, serpents, demons and the Furies avenge the mass murder of the sons of Ægyptus.