Bubbling De Schuurman

These albums aims to provide a selection of some of the most representative classic of world music, as well as a selection of recent successes, universalized in version "World". This denomination, we have baptized for the occasion as "La Musica De Los Dioses" (The Music of the Gods), provides a spectrum of influences, whose origins are in the most remote places on earth. Sounds, percussion and voices of the Amazon jungles, islands of Borneo and Indonesia or multiple regions of Africa converge here with influences from very different cultures and current rates.

It's been over 10 years since the last edition, this new volume of "La Musica De Los Dioses" subtitled "Requiem" find fourteen original pieces that try to provide a spectrum of influences whose origins come from the most remote places on the planet. Chill flamenco, the mystical sound, the Eastern atmospheres and Classic, Chill Out and Ambient. They combine to offer an album with unique identity of its kind. Sounds and influences combine to create a timeless atmosphere, where ethnic and electronic sounds offer a whole multi-cultural sound spectrum. On this occasion La Musica De Los Dioses offers sounds, percussions and voices of the Amazon forest, the tropical islands and Indonesia or multiple regions of Africa, Gregorian chants, sounds with "Alma" converge here with the influences of very different cultures and current rates. Each of the pieces is a marvel of harmony and instrumentation with eternal stories of love and passion.

Poised at the convergence of 18th-century French and Italian schools, Leclair and Senaillé were the French Paganinis of their day. Technically challenging yet full of poetry, rhythmically varied and always dance-like, their sonatas find two fervent advocates in Théotime Langlois de Swarte and William Christie. Transcending generational differences, the “venerated elder statesman of early music” (Opera News) and the youthful violin prodigy join forces to help us rediscover these still unjustly neglected pages.

Written at the request of Louis XIV in honour of his sisterin- law, Henrietta of England, Le Ballet royal de la naissance de Vénus was performed in 1665 with Henrietta herself as the goddess of love and youth. In twelve entrées, this grandiose spectacle, combining dancing, music and poetry, served the power of the king, while attesting to the magnificence of his court. Musically very inventive, it shows the culmination of the ballet genre, on which Lully was to draw in creating the tragédie en musique. To complete the programme, excerpts from Les Amours déguisés (Armida’s famous lament “Ah! Rinaldo, e dove sei?”), Psyché, Le Bourgeois gentil homme and Le Carnaval - from the latter, a piece recycled from Les Noces de village, a burlesque aria sung by the boastful village schoolmaster Barbacola, a basso buffo role that Lully wrote for himself.

“Vox humana” or “Vox celestis”? For César Franck (1822-1890) the one is often a metaphor for the other; whether in sacred or secular vein, spirituality is inherent in all his vocal music, even the most modest of his choral works. Certain of these form the focus of attention in this first recording. They remain unpublished; were they perhaps thought to be of lesser worth for having originated in a religious or private celebration or in response to a publisher’s commission? We should remember that it was often the specific circumstances that provided Franck with the stimulus necessary for the realization of some of his masterpieces. Be that as it may, listening to these choral works offers the listener some delightful discoveries.

It was in Amsterdam in 1740 that a lawyer named Hubert Le Blanc published an astounding work that defended the use of the bass viol at a time when the violin and the cello were becoming more and more important in Parisian musical life. This recording provides a musical equivalent of his essay, depicting the initial success of the bass viol and of Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe (celebrated in the film Tous les matins du monde), its moments of glory and, above all else, the repertoire of the viol, violin and cello during the first half of the 18th century.

Between 1803 and 1968, the Grand Prix de Rome marked the zenith of composition studies at the Paris Conservatoire. In Maurice Ravel’s time the competition included an elimination round (a fugue and a choral piece) followed by a cantata in the form of an operatic scena. The entries were judged by a jury which generally favoured expertise and conformity more than originality and Ravel’s growing reputation as a member of the avant-garde was therefore hardly to his advantage, and may explain why he never won the coveted Premier Grand Prix, and the three-year stay at Rome’s Villa Medici that went with it.

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.

Flautist Ana de la Vega’s fourth PENTATONE album My Paris is a declaration of love to the glorious French capital and its rich flute history, as well as a trip down memory lane, featuring some of the greatest gems of French music history, including works by Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Satie, Poulenc, Mozart, Chaminade, Lili Boulanger, Von Paradis, as well as Bizet. De la Vega plays these pieces with verve and charm, full of reverence to centuries-old French flute-teaching traditions to which she still feels deeply connected and absorbed. She performs them together with the esteemed pianist Paul Rivinius.