François Allot

This album owes its title ‘Beauté barbare’ to Telemann who described the music he discovered during a trip to Upper Silesia in 1705 as existing ‘in its true barbaric beauty’. Did he mean ‘wild’? ‘Exotic’? In any case, the composer was fascinated: ‘An attentive observer could gather from [those musicians] enough ideas in eight days to last a lifetime.’ An equally passionate admirer of folk music, whose Serbian roots link him to these cultures, François Lazarevitch has conceived this wildly swirling programme that mixes Telemann ( Concerto Polonois ) and eastern European Romani music of the eighteenth century, thanks to a collection of dance tunes from 1730 that he has unearthed. ‘What is interesting for us as Baroque performers is to try to find in the pieces of “art music” everything that is not written down, namely the energy and “swing” of the folk dances. I like the music we play not to sound like early music’, says the flautist and founder of Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, who are joined for the occasion by a cymbalom virtuoso and a wide variety of percussion instruments.

It's fascinating to hear this earlier treatment of the story so famously set by Massenet and Puccini; Patrick Fournillier conducts a very engaging performance. Picture and sound are good, as they are for all Disque Dom releases.

There are some works which seem to be suspended in their time. La Damnation de Faust is a visionary project which took decades to become known as a chef-d’oeuvre, firstly in the rest of Europe and then in France, but posthumously. Today it is an emblematic work, built up of anthological pieces fro orchestra and choir and soloists’ aits which remain in our memories. Its interpretation by François-Xavier Roth in concert version enables us to hear this work with force and the audacity of early Berlioz: sombre but brilliant.

This release, part of harmonia mundi's series celebrating the Beethoven year, pairs the composer's iconic and much-loved Symphony No.5 with the far less well-known Symphony In 17 Parts by Francois-Joseph Gossec. The dramatic power and intensity of Beethoven stands in sharp contrast to to the cheerful and gallant music of Gossec. Les Siècles, led by François-Xavier Roth, apply their usual virtuosity and keen insight to both works in performances that are sure to delight.

Brahms’s Trio op.114, originally conceived for clarinet (like the two Sonatas op.120), is presented here in its version with viola: ‘Like all Brahms’s works, this trio is a vocal, melodic piece. And the viola is perhaps the instrument of the string quartet that comes closest to the human voice’, says violist Miguel Da Silva. ‘This version with viola obliges me, as a cellist, to listen differently: our two stringed instruments must “breathe” together and match their articulation’, continues Xavier Phillips. These three works from late in Brahms’s career testify to his modernity: ‘Brahms was often considered a classical composer who was impervious to modernity, the guardian of a certain tradition’, says pianist François-Frédéric Guy, who agrees with Schoenberg that he was, on the contrary, highly innovative: ‘We have a fine example, in the trio, of the extraordinary modernity of his combinations of rhythm and timbre: he is a total innovator.'

There is little in the way of a clear theme tying together this collection of Baroque works, which includes music by English and Italian composers, instrumental and vocal, secular and sacred, performed by the French group Ensemble Amarillis with soprano Patricia Petibon and tenor Jean-François Novelli. For the listener looking for a general assortment of pieces from the Baroque era, performed with lively energy, this could be just the thing. Outstanding are the vocal tracks featuring Petibon and Novelli. Petibon, whose jewel-like high soprano shines in the music of Purcell and Francesco Mancini, is a pleasure.

Le domino noir (The Black Domino) is an opéra comique by the French composer Daniel Auber, first performed on 2 December 1837 by the Opéra-Comique at the Salle de la Bourse in Paris. The libretto to the three-act piece is by Auber's usual collaborator, Eugène Scribe. It was one of Auber's most successful works, clocking up 1,207 performances by 1909. It received its UK premiere in 1838 and appeared in the USA the following year. Some of Auber's music has a Spanish flavour to reflect its setting.

The dance permeated every layer of Romantic society. From popular dance halls to courtly salons, people showed their public face, enjoyed themselves and met one another in waltz time or to the rhythms of the quadrille or the polka. At the same time, ballet gained unprecedented fame on the stage of the Paris Opéra. The music that accompanied this frantic round in France has long been neglected, whereas the Viennese have never ceased to celebrate their waltzes. Under the expert baton of François-Xavier Roth, the orchestra Les Siècles has set out to rediscover this French repertory using historical instruments. Their album explores the output of both established composers – Camille Saint-Saëns, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet – and their colleagues who specialised in Terpsichorean entertainment, including Philippe Musard, Isaac Strauss, Émile Waldteufel and Hervé.