Les Miserablez

This album owes its title ‘Beauté barbare’ to Telemann who described the music he discovered during a trip to Upper Silesia in 1705 as existing ‘in its true barbaric beauty’. Did he mean ‘wild’? ‘Exotic’? In any case, the composer was fascinated: ‘An attentive observer could gather from [those musicians] enough ideas in eight days to last a lifetime.’ An equally passionate admirer of folk music, whose Serbian roots link him to these cultures, François Lazarevitch has conceived this wildly swirling programme that mixes Telemann ( Concerto Polonois ) and eastern European Romani music of the eighteenth century, thanks to a collection of dance tunes from 1730 that he has unearthed. ‘What is interesting for us as Baroque performers is to try to find in the pieces of “art music” everything that is not written down, namely the energy and “swing” of the folk dances. I like the music we play not to sound like early music’, says the flautist and founder of Les Musiciens de Saint-Julien, who are joined for the occasion by a cymbalom virtuoso and a wide variety of percussion instruments.

As a one-of-a kind company, standing at the crossroads between musical, lyrical and theatrical worlds, Les Monts du Reuil specialises in the forgotten treasures of French opera. Here, it offers a distinctively rare program centred around the fables of La Fontaine, which unearthes two comic operas based on the works of the fabulist: Le Magnifique [The Magnificent] by André Grétry and L'Éclipse totale [The Total Eclipse] by Nicolas Dalayrac, which was reconstructed for the occasion, and recorded here for the first time. In their selection of the tastiest excerpts alternating from a small aria to a duet or a horse-racing brass fanfare, the musicians highlight the refinement, lightness and humor typically found in French lyrical art from this era.

J.S. Bach’s son Johann Christian arrived in London in 1762, and with his fellow composer Carl Friedrich Abel established a series of prestigious concerts that ran for 17 years. Music heard at the Bach-Abel recitals is surveyed on this intriguing album by the Swiss ensemble Les Ombres. The sprightly Quartet in D Major by J.C. Bach, two pensive pieces for bass viol by Abel, and a charmingly Mozartian Harpsichord Quintet by Johann Samuel Schröter are among the highlights, and three of Haydn’s numerous arrangements of Scottish songs are brightly sung by mezzo-soprano Fiona McGown. Les Ombres play on period instruments, imparting an extra tang to this fascinating slice of aural history.

Hippolyte et Aricie was Rameau's first surviving lyric tragedy and is perhaps his most durable, though you wouldn't know it from the decades we had to wait for a modern recording. Now there are two: this one, conducted by Marc Minkowski, and William Christie's version on Erato. Choosing between the two is tough. Minkowski uses a smaller and probably more authentic orchestra, and with the resulting leaner sound, the performance has more of a quicksilver quality accentuated by Minkowski's penchant for swift tempos. His cast is excellent. The central lovers in the title are beautifully sung by two truly French voices, soprano Véronique Gens and especially the light, slightly nasal tenor of Jean-Paul Fourchécourt. In the pivotal role of the jealous Phèdre, Bernarda Fink is perfectly good but not in the exalted league of Christie's Lorraine Hunt. So there's no clear front-runner, but anyone interested in French Baroque opera must have at least one.

The late-'60s film starring Marianne Faithfull and Alain Delon has a cult reputation, if only because it's one of Faithfull's few film appearances (and has rarely been seen, especially in the U.S.). The soundtrack has enough of a groovy late-'60s period feel to merit a cult reputation of its own, with its bordering-on-bizarre mix of solid '60s Hammond organ grooves, soothing quasi-classical interludes, lush '60s Europop along the lines of the theme from A Man and a Woman, and brief flashes of psychedelia and avant-gardisms. (Faithfull fans be cautioned: Marianne does not sing on the soundtrack at all.) The recurring motifs are quite insinuating, and treated with a number of imaginative arrangements, making this a pretty interesting find for fans of '60s Euro easy listening/pop hybrids, even if they're not interested in having a souvenir of the film. The CD reissue does the job right by adding good liner notes and three bonus cuts by vocalists Mireille Mathieu and Cleo Laine, who recorded these tracks after Les Reed added lyrics to three instrumental pieces from the film.

This programme marks the eagerly awaited return of Véronique Gens to Baroque music and Lully, in which she made a name for herself at the start of her career. It presents airs from Atys, Persée, Alceste, Proserpine, Le Triomphe de l’Amour and other works by Louis XIV’s famous composer, but also several by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (Médée), Henry Desmarets and Pascal Collasse. Whether well known, rare or in some cases even unpublished, all of them present roles for powerful women whose love is unrequited: dark passions, bitter laments, jealousy, vengeance, the type of dramatic characters that Véronique Gens embodies with all the charisma that has made her reputation. This recording is also the result of an encounter with the youthful ensemble Les Surprises, founded and directed by Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas. Together they conceived this programme, which mingles airs, dances and choruses, in collaboration with the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles.