Les Arts Florissants

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.

With their bold harmonies, their counterpoint of unequalled refinement and their raw emotion, the Tenebrae Responsories are the sacred counterpart to Gesualdo’s last two books of madrigals, published the same year (1611). Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants here prolong their critically acclaimed exploration of those six increasingly venomous collections. Their interpretation of the Responsories for Maundry Thursday subtly shifts towards the conscious dolorism of the late works of the Prince of Venosa.

1611. After two years of study with Gabrieli in Venice, Heinrich Schütz tried his hand at composing madrigals on Italian poems. This mere ‘graduation exercise’ turned out to be a masterpiece: the young German composer demonstrated his ability to identify each nuance of the text with a different musical emotion, a refinement heightened here by the interpretation of Les Arts Florissants.

Commissioned by the Comte d’Ogny for the Le Concert de la Loge Olympique, the ‘Paris’ Symphonies form a key milestone in Haydn’s output.

Pygmalion is, perhaps, Rameau's most consistently alluring ac/c de ballet whose overture, at least, was greatly admired in the composer's lifetime. There have been three earlier commercial recordings of which only the most recent, on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, is currently available. Pygmalion was Rameau's second ac/c de ballet and it contains affecting and vigorous music in the composer's richest vein. The action takes place in Pygmalion's studio. Captivated by the appearance of the statue he has just completed, Pygmalion, legendary King of Cyprus, falls in love with it.

A brand-new label from one of the world's finest early music ensembles makes an auspicious debut with this stunning new recording of Handel's oratorio Belshazzar. Les Arts Florissants, led by the great William Christie, have launched their new label with the goal of expanding the ensemble's connection to the listening public on a scale far beyond the concert hall. Belshazzar was first performed in 1745, and was frequently revised. Christie has chosen what he considers to be the most successful of the various versions of Belshazzar, resulting in the restoration of the piece in all its splendor. The libretto's subject, which focuses on the decline of a once glorious society and the ephemeral nature of Empire, is especially relevant today. This deluxe set also includes a bonus essay by Jean Echenoz entitled In Babylon, printed separately on special paper and included alongside the regular booklet. This specially commissioned work draws the reader deep into the ancient, majestic city, the seat of power of Belshazzar the King.

William Christie triumphs; nobody does French Baroque with an Italian accent better and with his ensemble Les Arts Flos, he has made some of the finest recordings of French baroque music, including these French cantatas by André Campra (1660-1744). Campra is usually regarded as the most important French composer between Lully and Rameau and a transitional figure in French opera. Curiously, many of the musicans of Les Arts Florissants back in 1986 were American or British: violinist John Holloway, flautist Robert Claire, theorbist Stephen Stubbs, and the superlative American soprano Jill Feldman. However, to hear quintessential French vocal technique, listen to Dominique Visse singing the cantata 'La Dispute de l'Amour et de l'Hymen.' Jean-François Gardeil, the baritone on this CD, also contributes a pure French inflection to the performance. Recorded in 1986, in Arles.

William Christie’s account on Erato is probably now a first recommendation… he has marshalled expert singers; Alan Ewing’s Polyphemus is particularly good, well characterized and spirited. Indeed, the whole performance is full of life and personality, and Christie holds everything together with finesse and grace.

Following the acclaim which met their 2-CD set devoted to the first two books of Gesualdo's madrigals (2020 Gramophone Award), Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants now focus on the composer's Ferrara period. Books III and IV mark a turning point in Gesualdo's output. The murderous prince's inner demons seem to be reflected in the heightened expressiveness of these madrigals, whose reliance on chromaticism and dissonance was so far ahead of it's time that it's like would not be heard again until centuries later.