Christophe Blin

Ever since its creation more than twenty-five years ago, the Accentus chamber choir has ardently championed the a cappella repertory: under its conductor and founder Laurence Equilbey, it has produced an impressive discography that sets the benchmark in this music. For this new recording, the first for Alpha, she hands over direction of the ensemble to Christophe Grapperon, its associate conductor since 2013: ‘It can never be said often enough: the a cappella repertory is a Holy Grail of vocal music! It is a sensory experience directly accessible to everyone, but demanding and often atypical for the listener.’ Hahn and Saint-Saëns are on the programme of this album in superb choral works combining simplicity and expressive power, some of which have never been recorded before.

Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques make a foray into the Romantic repertoire with this tribute to Pauline Viardot, who was not only the most influential singer of the nineteenth century, but also a pedagogue and composer, whose gifts, personality and incomparable aura made her one of the leading figures of French Romanticism. Together the mezzo-soprano Marina Viotti and Christophe Rousset retrace Pauline Viardot’s versatile career and, taking up her great roles, present a musical portrait of a unique performer, who was unanimously acclaimed by the audiences of her time.

Improvisations, free improvisations and medieval music from Codex Faenza (ca 1400) and Conrad Paumann (ca 1409-1473), plaid on Clavicymbalum, Clavicytherium and Clavichordium, all medieval keyboard instruments built by David Boinnard in Lille, France.

André Raison’s (1650-1719) biographical facts are so scattered, and they teach us so few about him, that he remains for us a quite poorly known musician: a hypothetical date of birth, a rather imprecise date of death, 1719, and a few pieces of information related to his education as well as his main positions – organist to the grand couvent et collège des Jacobins of rue Saint Jacques, and subsequently, to the “Royal” abbey of Sainte Geneviève du Mont where he had previously studied. We also know that Louis- Nicolas Clérambault, who dedicated to him his first and only organ works book in 1714 (date of publication as well of Raison’s second book), was his student.

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.