France (i)

After Franck, Debussy and Strauss, Mikko Franck and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France here continue their collaboration with Alpha Classics, this time with the spotlight on Igor Stravinsky. The programme begins with two pieces from his so-called ‘neo-classic’ period: his Capriccio and Octet. In the first, in which Stravinsky sets up a dialogue between piano and orchestra, the soloist is one of the great stars of the new generation, the French pianist Nathalia Milstein. Then the mood darkens, with the primitive rhythms and ferocious chordal attack of The Rite of Spring , a work that Mikko Franck has long since wanted to immortalize on CD: a major masterpiece of the 20th century and an essential milestone for every orchestra. Every single player seems to be on fire in this recording, which puts the seal on seven years of collaboration and achievement with its Finnish Music Director.

For his latest solo recording, acclaimed organist Simon Nieminski returns to Resonus with this pairing of two late organ works by the unjustly neglected twentieth-century French organist, pianist and composer Eugène Reuchsel.Both completed in the year before his death in 1988 these compelling collections, La Vie du Christ and Bouquet de France, sum up Reuchsel’s illustrious career as musician and composer and are here performed on the celebrated Rieger organ of St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh.

With Airlines, supreme instrumentalist, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, takes the music of an Oscar-winning film composer, Alexandre Desplat, into new realms. The album is entirely devoted to world premiere recordings – of original concert works and of reimagined versions of Desplat’s film scores, including Oscar-winners The Shape of Water (2018) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Pahud is accompanied by the Orchestre National de France, conducted by Alexandre Desplat himself.

Two CD collection from the French vocalist. Gall arrived on the music scene in the early '60s and achieved her first major success in 1965. In the decades that followed, her musical career rose to new heights, especially her collaborations with husband (and songwriter) Michel Berger.

Pierre Henry, a supreme innovator in the field of sound aesthetics, opened the gates to many other musical universes through the applications of his technological research. Fascinated by Beethoven from an early age, he composed a ‘Tenth Symphony’: ‘It’s not the one Beethoven made sketches for’, he said. ‘Nor is it a synthesis of the nine. It is essentially a combinatorial work. It’s also a tribute to the man who hoped to exceed the limits of the orchestra. Perhaps a way of painting my portrait (our portrait) through this music and the influence it has had on mine. It is a dreamlike, logical and respectful trajectory through what these symphonies contain and suggest. The work deliberately uses as “raw material” only notes, groups or motifs from the nine symphonies.’