Neg' Marrons Les Liens Sacres

"Mon plus beau Noël" has been recorded with the prestigious Prague Symphonic Ensemble and the children's choir of the Maîtrise Saint-Pierre-aux-Liens de Bulle. It features timeless French Christmas melodies – such as “Douce Nuit”, “Les Anges dans nos Campagnes”, and “Mon Beau Sapin” – rearranged and re-orchestrated in exceptional symphonic versions. The composers and arrangers Martin Batchelar, Samuel Pegg, Jérôme Kuhn, and Nathan Stornetta have given these marvellous works new depth and emotion.

After Les Danaïdes and Les Horaces, Les Talens Lyriques concludes the group’s cycle of Antonio Salieri’s French operas with the world premiere recording of Tarare. Often unfairly overshadowed by his brilliant contemporary Mozart, Salieri here composed a genuine masterpiece on the only libretto ever written by Beaumarchais.
Salieri has a taste for exoticism and, like Mozart in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, he transports us into a fantasy Orient seen through the eyes of the pre-revolutionary philosophy of the Enlightenment.

Paris, early Twentieth Century: in the space of three ballets, a previously unknown Russian composer revolutionised the music of his time. With The Firebird and Petrushka, respectively fairytale and folktale, and of course The Rite of Spring, a telluric invocation with its insanely innovative harmonies and rhythms, Stravinsky dynamised the Late Romantic orchestra, taking it to literally unheard-of places.

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 Whether well known, rare or in some cases even unpublished, all of them present roles for powerful women whose love is unrequited: dark passions, bitter laments, jealousy, vengeance, the type of dramatic characters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.

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.