Lalo Schifrin:the Legendary Paris Concert

A number of posthumous CDs have appeared following Gerry Mulligan's death in 1996. This one combines two previously unreleased quartet concerts, both featuring Bob Brookmeyer, an equally talented composer and arranger and outstanding valve trombonist. The songs are all familiar to Mulligan fans, including the swinging arrangements of "Laura" and great tunes like "Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are" and "Baubles, Bangles and Beads," which few other jazz groups seem to play. Mulligan's very cool but awkwardly titled "Bweebida Bobbida" and "Utter Chaos," his favorite theme song, round out the material from the 1957 Hollywood Bowl concert. Bassist Joe Benjamin and drummer Dave Bailey (inexplicably listed as "Donald Bailey" on the CD's back cover) make up the capable rhythm section.

Callas made her belated Paris debut with this concert at the sumptuous Paris Opéra—now known as the Palais Garnier—in 1958. It was a major social event, attended by le tout Paris, and Callas appeared on the famous stage wearing her most elegant couture and a million dollars’ worth of jewellery. She opened with Norma’s “Casta diva”, which was followed by Leonora’s plaintive aria and the gripping “Miserere” from Act 4 of Il trovatore, before she lightened the mood with “Una voce poco fa” from Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Thanks to Julien Chauvin and his ensemble La Loge, the programs of the Concert Spirituel’s evenings in the late 18th century Paris come back to life. The so called Haydn’s “symphonies parisiennes” are the core of their musical project which also features contemporary composers, some of them are still unknown.

Julien Chauvin and Le Concert de la Loge join Alpha and launch a new cycle devoted to Mozart. This project is a natural continuation of Julien Chauvin’s work of rediscovery focusing on the interpretation of the music of Haydn and his contemporaries in Paris in the late eighteenth century. The first recording assembles the majestic and grandiose Symphony no.41 in C major, known as the Jupiter, the Violin Concerto no.3 in G major and the Overture to Le nozze di Figaro. Julien Chauvin is, of course, the soloist in the violin concerto and, with his Concert de la Loge (which is no longer ‘Olympique’, since the French National Olympic Sports Committee forced the ensemble to amputate its name in 2016, despite the fact that it dates from…1782), they embark on a Mozartian marathon that promises to be electrifying!

To mark the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Saëns, the Palazzetto Bru Zane offers a chance to discover one of his most performed and admired operas in his lifetime, presented here in a rare version. Completed in 1893 and premiered the same year at the Opéra-Comique, the piece amusingly recounts the love affair between Nicias and Phryné, who dupes the old archon Dicephilus in order to avenge his cruelty. Its witty melodies and delightful orchestration made the opera an immediate success in Paris and then throughout France. It was enriched with recitatives composed by André Messager in 1896 to promote its career in theatres abroad. Hervé Niquet’s dashing interpretation brings out to the full the qualities of the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen Normandie and the Chœur du Concert Spirituel, thus providing a sparkling backdrop for the virtuosic soprano voice of Florie Valiquette, the refined lyricism of the tenor Cyrille Dubois and the vocal authority of Thomas Dolié’s baritone.