Jerome M. Vereb

“SATCHMOCRACY knocked me out from start to finish and listening to it was one of my most satisfying experiences in a very turbulent year. Instead of pretending it’s the 1920s, Jerome Etcheberry and company perform this music in the 2020s, keeping it fresh-sounding and moving forward. In such a contemporary, swinging setting, Louis Armstrong’s original trumpet lines jump out and hit the listener between the ears in exciting new ways, especially when scored for multiple instruments and when placed over consistently shifting rhythms. It’s further proof that every note Armstrong played will simultaneously remain hip and timeless, especially when presented the way it’s done on SATCHMOCRACY!”

After triumphant recordings of Handelian opera seria and other Italian material, soprano Sandrine Piau, France's voice of the Baroque, turns her attention to repertory that is very little known outside of France. Even in their homeland, Piau writes in the CD booklet, these arias and instrumental music are merely "not exactly virgin territory."

Soprano Sandrine Piau's new project is dedicated to French baroque repertoire, offering a wide range of very beautiful arias by Rameau, Lully, Campra etc in a 100-year journey that mixes very famous music with little-know pieces, such as arias by Grétry or Sacchini > Sandrine Piau and Jérôme Correas, a former singer, founder and music director of Les Paladins, have worked together on a regular basis since their early careers, especially with William Christie.

A most famous composer in London at the time of Haendel and a great protagonist of the Ospedali musicali in Venice, Nicola Antonio Porpora (1686-1768) is nevertheless forgotten gloomily of our musical culture. To the rare discographic recordings dedicated to his music, we can add this one, conducted magnificently by Jérôme Correas. (…) Correas interpretation is sensitive, vivid and it stands like a mirror of Porpora's vocal vuirtuosity ; this exaggerated virtuosity is here a natural and vital component of the score, fostering an atmosphere of fervent mysticism (…) that arouse emotions.

After a first album as part of the harmonia nova collection, which resulted in a well-deserved Victoire de la Musique Classique (category New Instrumental Soloist), Bruno Philippe continues his path on the harmonia mundi label. This programme devoted to Rachmaninoff and the unfairly neglected Myaskovsky is a genuine technical and artistic challenge, which the young cellist has taken up in total harmony with his long term musical partner Jérôme Ducros. Be swept away by the swirling passions of these works, among the most romantic in Russian musical literature.

There is nothing left wanting in these performances. Hantaï and Verzier both display adroit virtuosity, possess warm tones but distinctive approaches, and share a telepathic sense of interplay, all excellent qualities in these intimate chamber works. Brother Pierre Hantaï on the keyboard sticks with them throughout, following them even in the most tempo rubato-saturated Sarabande. The lion's share of the pieces here are in the standard stylized Baroque dance forms, but Marais' expressive melodies, pungent harmonies, and highly individual take on the forms make each piece unique.

Flutist Jerome Richardson (who switches to tenor on one of the five selections on this reissue) has long been underrated and has had relatively few opportunities to lead his own record dates – only four up to the present time, of which Midnight Oil was the first…

Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) was a worthy successor to Monteverdi on the Venetian musical scene, and while his operas may not sustain the level of exalted musical inspiration and psychological depth of Monteverdi's, they come close enough to fully deserve the recognition they are beginning to receive. Like Monteverdi, Cavalli was a master dramatist, and his operas bristle with theatrical energy and vivid musical characterizations. L'Ormindo (1644), the first of his operas to be rediscovered (by Raymond Leppard, who conducted it at Glyndebourne in 1967), was written just two years after L'incoronazione di Poppea, and shares some of its attributes, most notably a remarkably expressive use of recitative, intriguing characters, and a dramatically arresting intermingling of comic and serious elements.