Emilie Simon La Marche De L'empereur

Discover “PHOENIX”, the atypical story of Lily Mercier’s return to life. "PHOENIX" is Emilie Simon's new transmedia project composed of an EP of 6 tracks, a musical tale and a short film.

Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra mark 150 years since the death of Hector Berlioz with his tempestuous oratorio, La damnation de Faust.

Born in London of Italian-French parents, Sir John Barbirolli (1899–1970) trained as a cellist and played in theatre and café orchestras before joining the Queen’s Hall Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood in 1916.

Berlioz wrote of Halévy’s La Reine de Chypre (1841): ‘Its success will at least equal that of La Juive. And Wagner added: ‘It is in La Reine de Chypre that Halévy’snew style hasappeared with themost brilliance and success.’ So several voices – and those by no means insignificant – have declared thiswork,written six years after LaJuive, to be its composer’s masterpiece.

For Bernard Labadie, Le Chemin de Noël is the realization of a great dream inspired by the tradition of the annual Christmas concerts at the Chapel of King’s College in Cambridge, England. Named after the beloved annual concerts that Labadie has conducted in Quebec since 2016, Le Chemin de Noël is the conductor’s deeply personal reflection on the meaning on Christmas.

It was on 18 July 1668 that Moliere successfully performed George Dandin ou le mari confondu, a play mixed with a sung pastoral, for “Le Grand Divertissement Royal de Versailles” offered by Louis XIV to his Court, as a celebration of the Peace of Aachen. This amusing story of a rich peasant who purchases a young noble girl includes interludes set to the splendid music of Lully. The same year sees the promisaing meeting between Lully and Quinault: together they write for the King La Grotte de Versailles, in which Louis is glorified, and dances in person the role of a nymph.

“The most dramatic piece that Berlioz ever wrote,” is how conductor John Nelson describes La Damnation de Faust. The composer designated this thrilling hybrid of oratorio and opera a ‘légende dramatique’. Following in the triumphant footsteps of Les Troyens, also recorded at the Auditorium Erasme in Strasbourg, this performance reunites Nelson and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg with singers Michael Spyres, Joyce DiDonato and Nicolas Courjal.

“And the violin dances Furiant, carried away by an irresistible ardour”. Beyond the intrinsic character of gypsy music, which constantly moves back and forth between melancholy and joy, dance is the obvious thread running through this album. It creates a bond through its intensity and infinite rhythmic contrasts, revealing a wide range of emotions. One dance can contain an entire life, with its laughter, its tears, its perpetual movement, its ruptures, its unpredictability in the passage from one emotional state to another…

This manuscript, from Christophe Rousset’s private collection, was discovered by him in 2004. Property of Madame de Théobon, one of Louis XIV’s mistresses, it contains not only the essential French harpsichord pieces of the late seventeenth century, but also many transcriptions of compositions by Lully and several hitherto completely unknown works. Providing precious insight into the musical practices of that time, these pieces are recorded here for the first time. With its powerful sound, the Nicolas Dumont harpsichord of 1704 does them full justice.