François Martin

Descendant d'une longue lignée de musiciens, François Couperin fut le plus grand compositeur baroque de son temps. Il représente un jalon important entre Lully et Rameau et, bien que, comparé à d'autres, il ait peu composé, rien dans son oeuvre n'est à écarter. C'est pour les concerts du dimanche matin à la cour du roi Louis XIV, que Couperin composa cette série de Concerts royaux.

Two suites for recorder and basso continuo appear on this volume, a welcome representation of that instrument in the oeuvre of Hotteterre. Performance pitch is A=392, which reflects practice in the France of Hotteterre's day, but more importantly puts the flute down into that wonderfully soft and relaxed timbre which made it such a sensation in the first decades of the 18th century. There are bits and pieces of Hotteterre floating about in the recorded repertoire, but none surpass these performances, and once again.

Born into a Belgian family of instrument makers and musicians, Fétis became perhaps the most important music historian and musicologist of the 19th century, as well as an influential critic. Though his writings were encyclopedic, his compositional output was relatively sparse.

The undeniable merit of this recording is that it preserves what a vividly marvelous piece of musical melodrama this opera is, abounding with lyrical moments and cracklingly powerful scenes, and marked throughout by engaged and engaging acting by the principals. It also allows one to contemplate how rich in influences this opera was upon the young Verdi and Wagner, in equal measure. There are pre-echoes here of the choral writing in Flying Dutchman, Wotan’s Spear, even the “Magic Fire Music,” as well as Verdi’s dispensation of groundswell choral scenes and dramatic use of parlando.

639 de l’ère chrétienne. L’empereur Héraclius regagne Constantinople, malade, ayant dû abandonner la Terre sainte aux irrésistibles cavaliers du désert qui combattent au nom d’Allah. Au même moment, Dagobert 1er, maître des royaumes francs, se fait transporter à Saint-Denis, près de Paris, où il souhaite mourir. La même année encore, le calife Omar, deuxième successeur de Mahomet, contemple avec allégresse sa conquête : Jérusalem, où il est entré l’année précédente. …