La Passion D'augustine

Flautist Ana de la Vega’s fourth PENTATONE album My Paris is a declaration of love to the glorious French capital and its rich flute history, as well as a trip down memory lane, featuring some of the greatest gems of French music history, including works by Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Satie, Poulenc, Mozart, Chaminade, Lili Boulanger, Von Paradis, as well as Bizet. De la Vega plays these pieces with verve and charm, full of reverence to centuries-old French flute-teaching traditions to which she still feels deeply connected and absorbed. She performs them together with the esteemed pianist Paul Rivinius.

The La De Da's were a leading New Zealand rock band of the 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in New Zealand in 1963 as The Mergers, they enjoyed considerable success in both New Zealand and Australia until their split in 1975…

The Happy Prince is a studio album by the New Zealand rock band The La De Das, released in June 1969. It was the third album from the group and is often cited as the first Australian and New Zealand concept album…

Jérôme Lejeune continues his History of Music series with this boxed set devoted to the Renaissance. The next volume in the series after Flemish Polyphony (RIC 102), this set explores the music of the 16th century from Josquin Desprez to Roland de Lassus. After all of the various turnings that music took during the Middle Ages, the music of the Renaissance seems to be a first step towards a common European musical style. Josquin Desprez’s example was followed by every composer in every part of Europe and in every musical genre, including the Mass setting, the motet and all of the various new types of solo song. Instrumental music was also to develop considerably from the beginning of the 16th century onwards.

With the present disc, Pascal Rophé and his Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire pay tribute to their great countryman, Claude Debussy – but not with the standard orchestral fare. Debussy Orchestrated paints a portrait of a light-hearted composer, seen through the eyes of two of his collaborators, Henri Büsser and André Caplet, who transferred the works recorded here from the keyboard to the orchestra. In Petite Suite, composed for piano four hands in 1899, Debussy makes allusions to Fêtes galantes by Paul Verlaine, the poet who so often inspired him.

Hello, fans of genuine 70's Italian Prog… Rejoice! Fabio Zuffanti (Finisterre) came out with his new side project, La Maschera di Cera. The music mounts back to the best Mellotron / Moog driven symphonic prog performed by bands like Museo Rosenbach or IL Balleto Di Bronzo. All the ingredients are in place: distorted basses, accoustic guitars, an excellent vocalist and very inspired flute passages complete the set. The result is a nostalgic flash-back to the roots of the italian prog. A must for fans of this country's very best!

La Real Cámara was formed in 1992 with the prime aim of rescuing and reviving the Spanish musical heritage of the 17th and 18th centuries. Emilio Moreno was commissioned in 1992 by the Consortium which organized Madrid, European Capital of Culture to create and direct an ensemble of chamber music that was able to interpret this rich and new repertoire. A highly talented group of Spanish musicians was chosen, all well established internationally, plus collaborators of the highest level such as Enrico Gatti, Natsumi Wakamatsu, Wouter Möller, Guido Morini, María Cristina Khier, Gaetano Nasillo and Roel Dieltiens.

In 1958 Poulenc composed La voix humaine, a one-act opera for soprano and orchestra, based on the monodrama of the same name, written for the Comédie-Française by his friend Jean Cocteau. In this staging of the end of an amorous relationship, we hear only the woman’s side of a final telephone conversation with the man who has abandoned her. The orchestra in this innovative work is used not only to unify the composition, but also to reveal what the voice, laid bare by a moving parlé-chanté style, does not say. Fiançailles pour rire and Chemins de l’amour, usually for voice and piano, but presented here in an orchestrated version by one of our finest conductors, Frédéric Chaslin, completes this eloquent rendition of works of a bittersweetness that Poulenc transcends like no other.

Capella de la Torre is a German early music ensemble led by Katharina Bäuml, founded in 2005. In 2016 Katharina Bäuml and Capella de la Torre won the ECHO Klassik Ensemble des Jahres for their CD Water Music. In 2017 Capella de la Torre was awarded again with ECHO Klassik for the CD "Da Pacem" with Rias Kamerchor conducted by Florian Helgath. The ensemble is a wind ensemble, but has enlarged to include singers, lute, organ and percussion.