Noren & Crossley

L’histoire entre Les talens Lyriques, Christophe Rousset et Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) est l’histoire d’une réussite. Les sept disques (Persée, Roland, Armide, Amadis, Phaéton, Bellérophon et cet Alceste) du compositeur d'origine italienne naturalisé français enregistrés par l’ensemble et le chef et claveciniste Français sont tous un véritable succès critique. En quelques années, Les talens Lyriques et Christophe Rousset sont passés maître du style et de l’écriture Lulliste au point d’être devenus un (le ?) véritable intournable du genre.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau hailed Platée as the best musical play ever to be heard in our theatres. In Robert Carsens production, the mythological events take place in the world of Parisian haute couture and Jupiter is portrayed as the fashion god Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019) who has now really been transferred up to Olympus. This ingeniously apt transposition of this satirical opera into the modern day has long been a hit! The renowned specialist in baroque music, William Christie, conducts his Les Arts Florissants, the Arnold Schoenberg Chor and a fantastic cast. 'A candy-coloured baroque dream' Salzburger Nachrichten. 'A must-see' - and not only for fashion freaks!

Esa-Pekka Salonen emerged as one of the most exciting and fast-rising major conductors of the last two decades of the twentieth century. He entered the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki 1973, studying horn with Holgar Fransman. Having graduated in 1977, Salonen remained to take composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara and conducting with Jorma Panula.

This CD contains some interesting material not found elsewhere. Recorded live at Palace of Festivals Theatre in Cannes, France in January 1981 and January 1983, the disc features Metheny, Gary Burton, the Heath Brothers, Ahmad Jamal, and the Hum Trio. It is very hard to find and available only on the Fruit Tree (Italy) label (1999). Highly recommended, this CD will be irrestible to fans of quartet-format jazz or any of the artists, who seem to have been captured at their best.

Christophe Rousset and Talens Lyriques return to Lully and his seventh opera, Isis. Inspired both by Roman mythology and Ancient Egypt, Isis is a story of love and jealousy. This plot caused a scandal at the Royal Court when Madame de Montespan, who was the King's favorite, saw in it a reference to her own situation, the Sun King being at that time occupied with a new mistress. The work's dramatic intensity provides Lully with many occasions to show his remarkable talent for orchestration. Featuring the Chamber Choir of Namur and a brilliant cast of soloists, this recording revives a neglected gem of the French Baroque repertoire.

After having won the Gramophone Award in 2014 for his recording of Prokofiev’s five piano concertos, exclusive Chandos artist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet here explores the complete works for piano and orchestra of another Russian composer of the twentieth century: Igor Stravinsky. Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the left hand, and Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Orchestra make good company. First, Bavouzet considers them ‘the greatest concertos of the twentieth century.

His Japanese fans reverently dubbed Fenton Robinson "the mellow blues genius" because of his ultra-smooth vocals and jazz-inflected guitar work. But beneath the obvious subtlety resides a spark of constant regeneration – Robinson tirelessly strives to invent something fresh and vital whenever he's near a bandstand. The soft-spoken Mississippi native got his career going in Memphis, where he'd moved at age 16. First, Rosco Gordon used him on a 1956 session for Duke that produced "Keep on Doggin'." The next year, Fenton made his own debut as a leader for the Bihari Brothers' Meteor label with his first reading of "Tennessee Woman." His band, the Dukes, included mentor Charles McGowan on guitar. T-Bone Walker and B.B. King were Robinson's idols.