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This disc, recorded live toward the end of Jacqueline du Pré's grievously short career, displays both her irresistible magic–the sumptuous, warm tone, the spontaneous immediacy of expression, the technical and emotional risk-taking born of total faith in her talent and musical instincts–and her unbridled excesses: the liberties, the extreme tempi and tempo changes, the passionate abandon, the incessant slow, sentimental slides.

Voici le panorama fascinant d'une Afrique inconnue - l'Afrique subsaharienne des "siècles d'or" (du VIIIᵉ au XVᵉ siècle). Conduit par les négociants, les aventuriers, les géographes et les diplomates d'un lointain passé, mais aussi par les archéologues contemporains, le récit nous mène du Sahara aux rives du fleuve Niger, de l'empire du Mali aux royaumes chrétiens de Nubie ou d'Éthiopie, des principautés de la côte d'Afrique de l'Est aux énigmatiques ruines majestueuses de Grand Zimbabwe. On découvre les cours de souverains opulents …

Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre return to Handel with a complete recording of his opera Alcina. The title role is interpreted by Magdalena Kožená, who reunites with Les Musiciens and maestro Minkowski after a series of acclaimed baroque recordings.She is joined by an excellent cast of soloists, consisting of Erin Morley (Morgana), Anna Bonitatibus (Ruggiero), Elizabeth De Shong (Bradamante), Alois Mühlbacher (Oberto), Valerio Contaldo (Oronte) and Alex Rosen (Melisso).This studio recording transports the listener to Alcina’s enchanted island, and shows Handel at the peak of his power: the score is dramatic, lush and colourful as well as introspective and profound where the story requires it.

Cellist Truls Mørk’s profound sensitivity to musical style is once again evident as he and Les Violons du Roy, under their director Bernard Labadie, bring modern instruments and 18th century sensibilities to the cello concertos of Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (third son of Johann Sebastian), in performances that give us ‘the best of both worlds’.

Cellist Truls Mørk’s profound sensitivity to musical style is once again evident as he and Les Violons du Roy, under their director Bernard Labadie, bring modern instruments and 18th century sensibilities to the cello concertos of Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (third son of Johann Sebastian), in performances that give us ‘the best of both worlds’.

Before you play the first track of this disc, make sure you're in quiet surroundings and ready to listen closely. You'll hear a pure yet sensuous soprano voice slip gently out of the silence and sing a melody that manages to be haunting and virtuosic at the same time–only to be followed by a similar voice doing the same thing. The two voices coil around each other (with some gleaming suspensions) for a full minute before instruments join them. And that's just the beginning of this marvelous disc of motets by François Couperin, a composer better known for his keyboard and chamber music. Most of these pieces were written to accompany the Elevation of the Host (the most solemn moment of the Roman Catholic liturgy), so you won't hear much exuberance.

Offenbachs La Périchole (1868) will never cease to delight music lovers of all persuasions. Marc Minkowski long one of the composers prophets was keen to pay tribute to him with this world premiere recording on period instruments, in the company of the young school of French singers, including the bewitching Aude Extrémo, the dashing Stanislas de Barbeyrac and the hilarious Alexandre Duhamel. Combining fashionable rhythms with the most unexpected touches of folklore, the score is a veritable flood of hit numbers. How can one not be swept away by the insolence of the Seguidilla, the frenzy of the Bolero or the furious rhythm of the Prison Trio? Never before, perhaps, had Offenbach gone so far in caricaturing political leaders nor used drunkenness to resolve the imbroglio of inextricable sentimental relationships. And indeed, the Tipsy Arietta is one of the composer's best-known numbers. Cheers!