Gwendoline

Chabrier remains poorly known and very little recognized by the French public. And listening to these recordings, we wonder why! Yet, this composer, a true alchemist of instrumental timbres, embodies the quintessence of the French spirit in music: freshness and delicacy of melodic inspiration, subtle humor in the treatment of his harmonization, orchestration of a wealth of colors and nuances unusual, great elegance of style. These qualities, or even these virtues, are perfectly illustrated in the "Pastoral Suite" which opens this record in a light atmosphere mingled with sweet melancholy and rustic joy. Of course, you can not escape the tube "España". But how to sulk his pleasure when it is the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra itself that sets fire to the powders!?! Throughout this record, John Eliot Gardiner takes advantage of the splendid sound of Viennese in the service of this music more elaborate than it seems.

– David Waléra

Semele is a masterpiece. For what else can one call a drama in which the perfect symbiosis of text and music conjures up such suggestive power? ‘To hold the mind, the ears and the eyes equally spellbound’: this recommendation by La Bruyère (Les Caractères: ‘Les ouvrages de l'esprit’) refers to the ‘machine plays’ so adored by the public in the Baroque period. But even without machinery or indeed without sets or real staging, Handel’s oratorio involves us in the tragic fate of his heroine with supreme skill.

For 30 years Michel Plasson has recorded French music exclusively for EMI Classics. This exclusive box is truly unique as it covers all the masterpieces of French repertoire: concertos by Ravel, Fauré's Requiem, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Bizet's only symphony, L'Arlesienne; Lalo's Symphony; etc . . .