Jeanne M. Haskin

Une réflexion sur la manière dont la psychologie est devenue incontournable dans le développement personnel et suscite beaucoup d'attentes de la part de personnes en état de mal-être. …

Je m'appelle Agnès Cleyre et je suis une sorcière. Une vraie cette fois. Ignorée durant toute mon existence par mes consœurs, voilà que la Grande Mère a enfin décidé de m'intégrer dans un convent. Mais pas le temps de m'interroger sur cet étrange revirement de situation. …

Pour rendre hommage à la grande actrice dont le nom est indissociable de la Chanson, ce coffret réunit pour la 1ère fois les 29 chansons que Serge Rezvani alias Bassiak a écrites pour Jeanne Moreau dans la foulée du Tourbillon de la vie. Jacques Canetti les a enregistrées en 1963, puis en 1966, avec comme orchestrateurs deux grands noms du jazz : Ward Swingle et Elek Bacsik.

From the notes: "Madame Darré's musical style changed over the years, as we can trace in this selection of her recordings made between the ages of 17 and 42.. In her last New York recitals in the early 1980's, she was no longer the fire-eating virtuoso, and molded cantilena with an exquisite soft legato, always charged with unexpected colors, turns of phrase, or important bass voice-leadings. Nevertheless, one of her trademarks, an infectious sense of rhythm, remained the same. … Her personal style was striking and colorful. She strode on stage like an athlete and the dancer she had been, resplendently gowned in extravagant hues that offset her hair. (At least once, she wore a slightly shocking formal miniskirt for an important New York recital!) Perhaps, if she considered it warm, she'd fling her jacket to the side of the stage before plunging without any fuss into the performance. Her audiences seemed to sense that she was an artist who loved to play" Notes by Gregor Benko

As a one-of-a kind company, standing at the crossroads between musical, lyrical and theatrical worlds, Les Monts du Reuil specialises in the forgotten treasures of French opera. Here, it offers a distinctively rare program centred around the fables of La Fontaine, which unearthes two comic operas based on the works of the fabulist: Le Magnifique [The Magnificent] by André Grétry and L'Éclipse totale [The Total Eclipse] by Nicolas Dalayrac, which was reconstructed for the occasion, and recorded here for the first time. In their selection of the tastiest excerpts alternating from a small aria to a duet or a horse-racing brass fanfare, the musicians highlight the refinement, lightness and humor typically found in French lyrical art from this era.

The well-known painting of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach reproduced on the cover of this CD must be one of the most immediately attractive composer portraits ever made. The wide-brimmed hat, the fur-lined coat, the wisp of steely hair and, above all, the reddened but unmistakably genial face (displaying, if I’m not mistaken, his father’s nose) suggest a man one would want to accompany straightaway to the nearest coffee-house. But Friedemann was actually a little more complex than that, both as a person who could be lazy and argumentative and as a talented musician torn between the styles of the late baroque and early classical periods, so it is perhaps no surprise to find that there is considerable variety in the music on this disc.