Marche

Since their formation in Mechelen, Belgium at the dawn of 2008, Marche Funèbre have carved their own indelible mark into the annals of heavy music. Originally inspired by the renowned triumvirate of Peaceville bands - My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost and Anathema - Marche Funèbre have long since shaped those influences into a sound that is all their own, a unique distillation of melancholy, atmosphere, beauty and soul crushing heaviness. With revered albums like 2017s "Into The Arms Of Darkness" and 2020s "Einderlicht" they have risen to a place of prominence within the mournful ranks of doom metal’s elite - and still their creative star continues to rise. With a new deal in place with Ardua Music, Marche Funèbre are ready to unveil their fifth full length album, After The Storm - the most impactful and emotive set of songs to bear their name…

Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835) Bellini, unlike many of his colleagues - among them Donizetti - did not have to endure the disappointments and difficulties ofrising from the ranks. His Bianca e Gernando, in 1826, was well received at Naples’s Teatro San Carlo, and one year later, atthe age of twenty-six, the composer triumphed at Milan’s La Scala with Il Pirata. Norma is not only the high point of Bellini’sartistic parabola but also the quintessence of Italian belcanto. The present DVD, filmed at the Sferisterio Opera Festival ofMacerata in August 2007, features, in the title role, the famous Greek soprano Dimitra Theodossiou, one of today’s best interpretersof Norma.

La Marche des Hommes was released after a three-year hiatus and presented a completely revamped Morse Code. All lyrics are in French and the music is firmly anchored to the British progressive rock bandwagon. Leader Christian Simard wrote most of the music and the group relied on poet Chantal Dussault for words. The topics were kept universal and humanitarian ("La Marche des Hommes" translates to The Walk of Men). The title track stands out: complex like a premium Yes suite, it attempted (and succeeded in) summarizing all the possibilities and talents of the group into one 11-minute song. The utopian "Le Pays d'Or" (The Land of Gold) is strongly influenced by French group Ange, Simard finding the right emotive inflections in Christian Décamps' register…

The French pianist Jean-Pierre Collot presents a highly interesting and, at first glance, unusual juxtaposition of the music of Helmut Lachenmann (b. 1935) with that of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827). Franz Liszt's (1811–1886) piano transcription of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony 'Pastoral' is in dialogue with Serynade and Marche fatale by Helmut Lachenmann. In this WDR production, Collot comes across as a contemporary painter and creates fascinating timbres and shades of these highly virtuoso masterpieces.

osé Serebrier's distinctive conceptions and nimble conducting imbue the familiar Marche slave, Capriccio italien, and 1812 Overture with a freshness that belies their long-held "warhorse" status. By employing lighter sonorities and crystal-clear balances (all rendered with spectacular fidelity and dynamism by BIS's remarkably vivid recording) that expose Tchaikovsky's gorgeous woodwind writing and inner harmonic detail, Serebrier brings a vibrant youthful quality even to the overplayed 1812. Listen to how the bracing opening, with its cleanly phrased, rhythmically taut string playing fosters ever-increasing tension. Later, in the grand coda, the dramatic brass-and-strings interplay genuinely excites while cannons roar away in the distance (the opposite approach to Telarc's cannon-down-your-throat technique).

Recorded in 1977, it was Yuri Temirkanov's first recording of the work, and it is superior to his 1991 digital version on RCA with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. The older reading is highly romantic in every way, caressing the composer's rich themes almost (but not quite) to excess, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra playing at its peak. Lush strings are appropriate for the score, brass is brilliant, and there is plenty of impact to percussion. Previn's Tchaikovsky is admirable, with the advantage of Kingsway Hall acoustics…

The popularity of the ''Polovtsian Dances'' would have eclipsed the rest of ''Prince Igor'', this vast historical fresco in which Alexander Borodin, absorbed by his works of chemist, worked from 1869? “We start a hundred different things. Will we be able to finish some of them? […] I harbor the hope of conducting my opera to its last bar, but […] I advance slowly and at long intervals. It was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov who granted this wish, after the sudden death of his comrade from the Group of Five in 1887. To put in order and complete the score, he was helped by his disciple Alexander Glazunov. Thus the great posthumous work could be created in 1890 in Saint Petersburg.