Les Amis de Philippe

The present richly enjoyable CD contains five trios by Johann Gottlieb and Carl Heinrich. In some areas of the brothers’ work it is near enough impossible to know who wrote what with any certainty – as Grove puts it “problems of attribution, chronology and biographical detail remain”. Manuscript attributions usually refer simply to ‘Graun’.

It was only when Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was appointed Musikdirektor in Hamburg that he started to compose a large amount of religious music. This, of course, was part of his job, but the fact that he had applied for this job is an indication that he didn't see any problem in writing music for the church and for specific occasions. It has taken a long time before the religious repertoire of Emanuel has been taken seriously, and it still doesn't belong to the core of religious music performed by today's choirs and orchestras.

If you asked a music-lover in Haydn or Mozart's time about the works of Bach, you would have been referring to CPE, and not his dad, the great JS, whose reputation was merely that of a great organist and sometime composer of "historical" music. Not only was CPE universally admired in his lifetime, he also wrote the definitive treatise on contemporary keyboard technique (it's still in use today), collected fine art, and left a superb body of music to future generations. The symphonies are really exciting pieces full of unpredictable turns of phrase and a genuinely passionate emotional expression. These excellent performances make the best possible case for them.

Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758) was a forward-looking musician who, though a contemporary of Bach, anticipated Haydn and Mozart in the classical style of his compositions. In his younger years he held several positions before he became the music director for the chapel at the court in Zerbst, where he remained for 36 years. He also enjoyed a close connection with Dresden musicians, chiefly with the concertmaster of the Dresden court orchestra, Pisendel. These works are thought to have been some of Fasch's many compositions for the famous orchestra at Dresden.

Francesco Manfredini was born in the austerely beautiful Tuscan town of Pistoia in 1684, a year before Bach, Handel and Scarlatti; he died as maestro di capella there in 1762. In the interim, he studied at Bologna with Torelli and later worked in Ferrara. He published relatively few sets of sonatas and concertos, and six oratorios, composed between 1719 and 1728, remain in manuscript. His 12 Concertos, Op. 3, were published in Bologna, a great musical centre in those days, in 1718, and were preceded by 12 Concertini, Op. 1, and 12 Sinfonie da chiesa, Op. 2. The Op. 3 Concertos are lively works, though less brilliant than Vivaldi’s similar pieces and lacking the nobility of Corelli’s sonatas and concertos. The final concerto of Op. 3 contains a ‘Pastorale per il Santissimo Natale’ which is Manfredini’s best-known work.

Philippe Georget est né en 1963 quelques jours après la mort de Kennedy, sans qu'il n'y ait apparemment de rapport ! Il a 20 ans quand il découvre la solidarité et les ampoules aux doigts en participant à la construction d'une école au Nicaragua. Puis ce sera l'Irlande et la Cisjordanie, suivies d'une studieuse licence d'histoire. Il opte ensuite pour le journalisme (radio, presse écrite et télévision), et poursuit aujourd'hui sa carrière du côté de France 3. Les voyages continuent (Turquie, Syrie, Jordanie, Israël, Egypte…)…

De nombreux ouvrages ont été consacrés à Vichy et au maréchal Pétain, mais il n'y a jamais eu d'étude globale sur les hommes clés qui, autour du chef vieillissant, ont façonné la politique de l'Etat français entre 1940 et 1944. Après un portrait des personnalités dominantes - Philippe Pétain lui-même, Maxime Weygand, François Darlan et Pierre Laval -, l'auteur analyse les cercles concentriques du pouvoir qui entourent Pétain et orientent sa politique. …

Mars 1912. Alors que la France frémit d’horreur à la lecture des exploits sanglants de la bande à Bonnot, l’inspecteur Jules Lerouet mène de son côté une traque bien plus personnelle, mettant en danger sa carrière et sa vie afin de venger la mort de sa compagne. …