Les Paladins

Soprano Sandrine Piau's new project is dedicated to French baroque repertoire, offering a wide range of very beautiful arias by Rameau, Lully, Campra etc in a 100-year journey that mixes very famous music with little-know pieces, such as arias by Grétry or Sacchini > Sandrine Piau and Jérôme Correas, a former singer, founder and music director of Les Paladins, have worked together on a regular basis since their early careers, especially with William Christie.

Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) celebrated his 400th birthday in 2005. Reason enough to pay tribute to this most important composer of the 17th century with a recording of some of his oratorios. Thanks to a very lively live recording of a concert with Jérome Correas and Les Paladins on Pan Classics, we now get to know five of his much admired oratorios.

Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) was a worthy successor to Monteverdi on the Venetian musical scene, and while his operas may not sustain the level of exalted musical inspiration and psychological depth of Monteverdi's, they come close enough to fully deserve the recognition they are beginning to receive. Like Monteverdi, Cavalli was a master dramatist, and his operas bristle with theatrical energy and vivid musical characterizations. L'Ormindo (1644), the first of his operas to be rediscovered (by Raymond Leppard, who conducted it at Glyndebourne in 1967), was written just two years after L'incoronazione di Poppea, and shares some of its attributes, most notably a remarkably expressive use of recitative, intriguing characters, and a dramatically arresting intermingling of comic and serious elements.

Les apôtres de l'épopée napoléonienne.
L'ouvrage retrace l'histoire et le parcours, souvent romanesque, des maréchaux du Premier Empire. Il ne s'agit pas dans cet ouvrage de présenter successivement les 26 maréchaux, ou de privilégier les plus connus, mais de dresser un portrait collectif, vivant et complet de ces " paladins " de Napoléon. Les maréchaux illustrent la conduite de la guerre à cette époque mais aussi la transformation des élites après la Révolution. …

Christophe Rousset's collection of overtures to 17 of Rameau's operas and opéra-ballets, played by his original instrument ensemble Les Talens Lyriques, won a 1998 Gramophone award for best Baroque non-vocal CD, and it's easy to hear why this outstanding performance was recognized. The ensemble plays with unflagging liveliness and brilliant, clean tone. The rhythmic vitality Rousset coaxes from his players is toe-tappingly engaging; at the same time, he maintains a fluidity that avoids metronomic rigidity. The tempos he takes sometimes have a breathtaking fleetness that leaves the listener marveling at the players' virtuosity.

Rameau - Le Grand Theatre De L'Amour - Sabine Devieilhe (2013) {Erato-Warner Classics 5099993414920}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 393 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 188 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 176 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2013 Erato / Warner Classics | 5099993414920
Classical / Baroque / Vocal

Sabine Devieilhe, the young French lyric-coloratura soprano, is a singer “whose upper register, like her virtuosity, appears limitless, while her verbal sense and dramatic engagement are breathtaking”. A prizewinner in the 2013 Victoires de la Musique Classique, France’s equivalent of the Grammys, she has recorded a ravishing programme of excerpts from operas by Rameau with conductor Alexis Kossenko and his ensemble Les Ambassadeurs.

The numerous instrumental pieces or 'Symphonies' found in the dramatic works of Rameau are remarkably effective on the harpsichord: the composer himself, with his transcription of 'Les Indes Galantes' invited other musicians to continue this tradition.
Seizing on the formidable array of material available in his operas: Platée, Zoroastre, Dardanus, Les Paladins, Pygmalion… Pierre Hantai and Skip Sempé, our finest exponents of this repertoire, take obvious pleasure in revealing, through the two harpsichords, the immense richness of this music, full of surprises and imagination.