Lumières

Musique des Lumières commissioned five composers to create works based on the enigmatic poems of Joseph Brodsky, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987, highlighted by the magical voices of soprano Laurence Guillod and baritone Pierre-Yves Pruvot. The resulting programme forms the latest edition of the «Music & Words» series, which commissions works inspired by great literary authors of our time. Following the editions on Julio Cortázar and Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Joseph Brodsky is the third album in this series. After the CD recording in collaboration with the label IBS Classical and the successful premiere in June 2022, Musique des Lumières is now embarking on a tour.

The Dürrenmatt Project is the multifaceted tribute with which Facundo Agudín and Musique des Lumières want to vindicate the figure of a protean and committed artist: from Pflüger’s thrilling tragicomedy Jedes Kunstwerk ist apokalyptisch – oder Bach und Dürrenmatt (Every work of art is apocalyptic – or Bach and Dürrenmatt) to the sardonic and imaginative score of The Minotaure by Genessey-Rappo, passing through the discourse between the atavistic and the experimental of Respiro (Breathe) by Pérez-Ramírez and the mystical and textural sonority of Stoff by Sontòn Caflisch. These four scores highlight Dürrenmatt as a writer and a visual artist; in short, one of the most authentic and respected thinkers of the 20th century.

Créé en 1995 par Jean-Christophe Frisch, premièrement sous le nom de XVIII-21 Musique des Lumières, XVIII-21 Le Baroque Nomade est un ensemble français ayant participé à un renouvellement de l’interprétation de la musique baroque, en s’appuyant sur les découvertes musicologiques les plus récentes. L’ensemble a notamment développé le concept de baroque nomade, travaillant sur les rencontres historiquement avérées entre musiques baroques européennes et musiques extra-européennes.

The eighteenth century is probably the most extraordinary period of transformation Europe has known since Antiquity. Political upheavals kept pace with the innumerable inventions and discoveries of the age– every sector of the arts and of intellectual and material life was turned upside down. Between the end of the reign of Louis XIV and the Revolution of 1789, music in its turn underwent a radical mutation that struck at the very heart of a well-established musical language. In this domain too, we are all children of the Age of Enlightenment: our conception of music and the way we ‘consume’ it still follow in many respects the agenda set by the eighteenth century.

The current renaissance in conjunction with the works of Giovanni Simone Mayr is not surprising, but is certainly necessary. With Demetrio, he left to posterity a masterpiece that belongs on the great stages of the world. Mayr’s late work is a mixture of romantic anticipation, stylistic reminiscences of Mozart and Haydn, bel canto elements and a touch of Rossini, all worked into a unique form. Of particular note is Mayr’s melodic inventiveness. Here OehmsClassics presents a live performace of Demetrio recorded at the Moutier Festival (Switzerland) in June 2011.

Je découvre une interprétation extraordinaire de Vivaldi. Le contraste est saisissant entre une basse continue très variée en timbre, chantante et dansante et l'archaïsme (au sens noble du terme) de la partie soliste, très teintée de musique française du 17ième siècle. Nous pourrions entendre des suites de Hotteterre ou de Marais.