La Morte Vinta Sul Calvario

Hans, le joueur de flûte is a ravishing opera, loosely based on the legend of Hamelin’s pied piper popularized notably by the Grimm Brothers, composed by Louis Ganne and premiered in Monte-Carlo in 1906. Rarely recorded, its best rendition is undoubtedly this beautiful 1967 performance with the best French singers of their time, including Liliane Berton and the amazing baritone Michel Dens in the title-role.

A legendary Swiss ensemble created in Fribourg in 1952, La Chanson de Fribourg is back on the recording market after an absence of 50 years!

Eighteenth century Naples was not only a creative, cultural melting pot, but also one of the most important cities in Europe. Full of impressive contrasts between decay and splendour, and with an immense artistic output whose musical influences stretched across Europe, attracting many musicians and composers, Naples was a source of fascination and has retained its appeal to the current day.

Les Fetes grecques et romaines, Colin de Blamont's first opera, was a resounding success from the moment it premiered in 1723. A synthesis between the nobility of the tragedie lyrique created by Lully and the more playful tone, with its choreographed divertissements, of the opera-ballet created by Campra, its libretto brings to life the best-known festivals of ancient History. The eloquent Alcibiades distinguishes himself at the Olympic Games, Mark Antony and Cleopatra celebrate the intoxicating Bacchanalia, and the poet Tibullus passionately courts his beloved Delia at the Saturnalia… Valentin Tournet helps us rediscover this masterpiece of the Age of Enlightenment, which for far too long has been overshadowed by its famous contemporaries.

With this new recording, Decca has pretty much sewn up the market on three generations of outstanding Bohèmes. Tebaldi and Bergonzi represent the 1950s, Freni and Pavarotti represent the 70s, and now Gheorghiu and Alagna take us into the new millennium with a recording that ranks among the very best.

The indefatigable Jordi Savall continues to unite musicians from East and West as he traverses five centuries of musical traditions in Granada, a city he describes as ‘one of the most important and admired cities in Muslim Andalusia’. The majority of performances on this new album were recorded live in 2013 at a concert in the Alhambra Palace to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of Granada’s foundation. Arranged in chronological order from the foundation of Granada in the Zirid period to the Castilian rule when Muslims were forced to convert to Catholicism, the programme begins with rejoicing – the invocation qamti be-Ishon Layla (Song of Songs) - and ends with an Andalusian lament Maqam hijaz (Ibn Zaydun) sung by Lior Elmaleh.

This recording features a work with a strange coincidence in its compositional process and an astonishing dual authorship. Remarkably, Silvius Leopold Weiss’s Lute Suite SW47 (which he named Suonata) also comes with a violin part that can be played over the top of it, composed by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. A recent comparison of sources revealed that the harpsichord part in Bach’s Suite for Violin & Harpsichord BWV1025, long considered to be of doubtful attribution, perfectly matches Weiss’s suite.

This recording features a work with a strange coincidence in its compositional process and an astonishing dual authorship. Remarkably, Silvius Leopold Weiss’s Lute Suite SW47 (which he named Suonata) also comes with a violin part that can be played over the top of it, composed by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. A recent comparison of sources revealed that the harpsichord part in Bach’s Suite for Violin & Harpsichord BWV1025, long considered to be of doubtful attribution, perfectly matches Weiss’s suite.

“The Impossible Symphony “Shows once again how limitless Arturo Márquez’s musical imagination is,” says Alondra de la Parra. “The way he addresses the big questions of our time here is absolutely stunning in its scope and quality. Taking the fifth movement, ‘Magicicada’, as an example, Márquez is inspired by the empathy shown by two species of cicadas that tune into each other’s life cycles to allow both species to thrive.

After a first disc devoted to English music, La Rêveuse introduces us to the sound world of Louis de Caix d’Hervelois. As heir to Marin Marais and one of his most brilliant pupils, Caix brought the bass viol new prestige in an era that was gradually abandoning the instrument. This composer skilled in expressing the elegance and grace of the Enlightenment era left us a substantial and varied corpus of music, a vivid portrait gallery in which bass viol, pardessus de viole and flute shine with especial lustre.