Sophie And Jacob

Vincent Delerm - Quinze Chansons [2008]
French singer/singwriter | Nov 2008 | Covers | MP3 @192 kbps | 51 MB
Genre: French-Pop

The music of French chanson Vincent Delerm channeled the sophisticated, archly literary pop tradition first popularized by American songwriters like Randy Newman and Paul Simon. No surprise, given that he is the child of acclaimed novelist Philippe and children's writer/illustrator Martine Delerm. Born August 31, 1976, in Evreux, Vincent was raised on the romantic, melancholy pop of French icons Alain Souchon and Françoise Hardy. As a teen, he embraced British post-punk icons the Cure and Joy Division, and at 17 formed his own mope-rock outfit, Triste Sire. He continued writing songs and teaching himself piano while studying modern literature at the University at Rouen, later expanding into theater and cinema as well. Delerm nevertheless reserved his greatest passion for music, and in 1998 made his solo live debut at Rouen's Ronsard Hall. A Parisian cabaret tour followed a year later, and in early 2000 Delerm befriended comedian Jérôme Deschamps, who passed his demo to producers with radio broadcaster France Inter, who in February invited the virtual unknown to perform on the network's flagship program, Sur le Pont des Artistes.

Dunedin Consort continues to apply its pioneering approach to recordings by releasing two alternative performing versions of one of Handel’s greatest dramatic works, Samson. This is the Full Chorus Version.

The Best Songs from Movies. 82 Hits, 5 Hours to Enjoy the Music. 5 Hours the World Hits the Last Century.

Nathan Berg is already well known to audiences from his many recordings in operas, cantatas, masses and symphonies working with conductors such as Rene Jacob, William Christie and Robert Shaw. He has recorded for Harmonia Mundi, Telarc, Philips and Erato. On Hyperion he has recently appeared with Marjana Lipovsek in Graham Johnson’s complete Schubert series, and with Sophie Daneman in Mendelssohn. For his debut solo disc on ATMA Nathan Berg has selected a programme covering more than a century of romantic German lieder, including some of the best-loved songs of the genre by Schumann, Brahms, Strauss and Schubert.

For all the celebrations to mark the tercentenary of Purcell’s death last year (1995), his keyboard music has remained very much in the shadow of his works for the theatre and Church; yet the simplicity and grace of these more intimate pieces make them immediately appealing. Several of them are, in fact, transcriptions of earlier vocal works, and therein lies the key to their interpretation. Of the two performers, Olivier Baumont is the more flamboyant, invariably choosing faster tempi than Sophie Yates, and playing with fluidity, panache and humour. But Yates’s guileless approach really captures the music’s ingenuousness, even if she occasionally sounds a little too strait-laced. Her harpsichord (a copy by Andrew Garlich of an instrument made in 1681 by Jean-Antoine Vaudry, now in London’s Victoria & Albert Museum) could hardly be better suited to the music, with its sweet, warm sound, beautifully reproduced by the Chandos engineers, who don’t make the all too frequent mistake of recording the instrument too close. Baumont’s harpsichord has a sharper tang, and he also uses a virginals for the Grounds and individual lessons. Both artists have much to offer, and the final choice will depend on whether you prefer your Purcell plain (Yates) or piquant (Baumont).

Par-delà les nuages / Beyond the Clouds - by Michelangelo Antonioni, Wim Wenders (1995)

Made of four short tales, linked by a story filmed by Wim Wenders. Taking place in Ferrara, Portofino, Aix en Provence and Paris, each story, which always a woman as the crux of the story, invites to an inner travel, as Antonioni says "towards the true image of that absolute and mysterious reality that nobody will ever see".