Les Têtes Givrées

Naples was in the mid-18th century the third largest European city and one of the greatest centres of political, commercial and cultural influence. The conservatoires there were founded by religious orders and were originally intended as charitable institutions for the accommodation and education of orphans, but soon became real centres of musical education and performance; many leading composers were pupils and teachers there and so contributed to the founding of the Neapolitan School. Porpora and Hasse are the greatest representatives of the Neapolitan style and both settled in Venice before rising to international fame. Their writing was strongly influenced by opera and reflects the Italian taste of the time; it is also present in their religious compositions. Les Muffatti and the South-African countertenor Clint van der Linde present works of exceptional expressive power, with Hasse’s Hostes Averni and Porpora’s Nisi Dominus being recorded here for the first time.

Saint-Saëns's first opera, Le Timbre d'argent initially composed in 1864 need not fear comparison with some of the most celebrated works in the nineteenth-century French repertory. It depicts the nightmare of a man whose hallucinations anticipate by twenty years the fantastical apparitions of Offenbach's Les Contes d Hoffmann.

Alessandro Scarlatti’s oratorio is an exciting drama of life, love and death, set in the 4th century Roman Empire. Preferring to devote her life to God, Teodosia rejects the love of Arsenio, the son of the Roman governor, and welcomes death. St. Theodosia of Tyre died at the age of 18, in the year 308. One cannot help but be struck by the dramatic strength and the vocal beauty of this work, performed here by a very talented cast, including Emmanuelle de Negri, Emiliano Gonzalez Toro, Anthea Pichanick, Renato Dolcini and the fiery orchestra, Les Accents, led by Thibault Noally.

Paris, early Twentieth Century: in the space of three ballets, a previously unknown Russian composer revolutionised the music of his time. With The Firebird and Petrushka, respectively fairytale and folktale, and of course The Rite of Spring, a telluric invocation with its insanely innovative harmonies and rhythms, Stravinsky dynamised the Late Romantic orchestra, taking it to literally unheard-of places.

Fully integrated with the musical line, the singers avoid melodrama through intimate, small gestures as if acting for screen, not stage.’ Gramophone Critics' Choice 2021 Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants conclude their exploration of this fascinating corpus. Even more than in his first books, Gesualdo here displays incredible modernity, playing in inimitable fashion on dissonances and chromaticisms. Love and death, joys and sorrows embrace and clash amid ever bolder harmonies.

André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s three-act opera Guillaume Tell was first performed in 1791 at the Salle Favart of the Comédie-Italienne in Paris. The opera deals with the Swiss fight for freedom in the 14th century against the domination of the Habsburgs. The story of Wilhelm Tell is well-known.