Bubbling De Schuurman

This new OSR recording presents the two most ambitious musical responses to Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 epoch-making play Pelléas et Mélisande.

Mägo de Oz es una banda española de folk metal fundada el 7 de julio de 1988 por el baterista Txus di Fellatio en el barrio de Begoña en Madrid. Inicialmente se llamó Transilvania, en honor a la canción homónima del sexteto inglés Iron Maiden, y adoptó el nombre definitivo de Mägo de Oz en 1989.1

The Orchestre de la Suisse Romande is a Swiss symphony orchestra, based in Geneva at the Victoria Hall. In addition to symphony concerts, the OSR performs as the opera orchestra in productions at the Grand Théâtre de Genève.

Henri Sauguet stampeded in the musical milieu when he was barely twenty, as co-founder with his mentor Erik Satie of the ephemeral École d’Arcueil. His orchestral music, inspired by the Six, is very French in tone: light, elegant, not demonstrative but straightforward. Sauguet earnt his biggest successes in ballet, his most revered score being the rarely recorded Les forains (The Carneys), choreographed by Roland Petit, empathic depiction of a modest troop of street artists. Featuring conductor Michel Plasson & coupled with the Tableaux de Paris, a set of lovely pictures of the most emblematic places of the capital.

In 1959, a family friend went to the home of Paco de Lucía and Pepe de Lucía where he made several recordings with a Grundig TK46 tape recorder. This tape disappeared in 1967 and, after a long search process, was rediscovered in 2022, when a restoration process started using AI tools. The historical value of this recording is incalculable and it gathers in 21 pieces an anthology of flamenco where most of its variants are represented (tangos, soleá, seguiriyas, bulerías…). It is, in short, the definitive recording to illustrate the transition from classical flamenco to modern flamenco as we know it today.

This programme marks the eagerly awaited return of Véronique Gens to Baroque music and Lully, in which she made a name for herself at the start of her career. It presents airs from Atys, Persée, Alceste, Proserpine, Le Triomphe de l’Amour and other works by Louis XIV’s famous composer, but also several by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Médée), Henry Desmarets and Pascal Collasse. Whether well known, rare or in some cases even unpublished, all of them present roles for powerful women whose love is unrequited: dark passions, bitter laments, jealousy, vengeance, the type of dramatic characters that Véronique Gens embodies with all the charisma that has made her reputation. This recording is also the result of an encounter with the youthful ensemble Les Surprises, founded and directed by Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas. Together they conceived this programme, which mingles airs, dances and choruses, in collaboration with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles.