Vnicholas Mathieu

The ensemble Aedes began it's musical journey with Poulenc, under the impetus of conductor Mathieu Romano. Here, at the head of Les Siècles, Romano returns to the unclassifiable composer to record two of his major works. In the pious contemplation of the Litanies, here performed in the manuscript version, and the orchestral luxuriance of the Stabat Mater, spirituality is expressed through music that is lively, sensitive and even, at times, sensuous.

The young Quebec pianist Jean-Michel Dubé, continues his discographic adventure devoted to the composer ANDRÉ MATHIEU, combining his talent with the Chambers of Violons du Roy. This is the third record that Jean-Michel dedicates to this composer from home and this time again, unpublished works both on record and at concerts are offered to music lovers. This chamber music that sees light, possibly for the first time, is a very unknown facet of André Mathieu and it beautifully complements the already important corpus of Canadian classical music.

Mathieu Lussier Canadian bassoonist and conductor Mathieu Lussier has performed with many ensembles in North America and Europe, playing modern and Baroque bassoons with Les Violons du Roy, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Arion Baroque Orchestra, the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Apollo's Fire, and the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. He became the artistic director of the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival in 2007. He has also performed chamber music with the Ensemble Pentaèdre de Montréal, the Caliban Quartet, and Musica Franca. He was named as associate conductor of Les Violons du Roy in 2014, and he has conducted the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Nova Scotia in Halifax, the Sherbrooke Symphony Orchestra, the Trois-Rivières Symphony Orchestra, and the Montréal Symphony Orchestra. Lussier has also taught at the University of Montréal, and he has had many of his own compositions performed and published in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France. He has recorded Baroque and Classical repertoire for ATMA Classique, including pieces by Vivaldi, Telemann, Boismortier, Devienne, Gossec, Méhul, and Mozart.

Véronique Mathieu and Stephanie Chua present INVOCATION, a collection of works for violin and piano written by female-identifying composers of unique heritages, backgrounds, and cultures. With a wide range of aesthetics and a variety of compositional eras, INVOCATION presents a collection of wonderfully animated performances that provide a fantastic model for the exploration of these composers’ works.

Mathieu Gaudet presents here the sixth volume in his wonderful collection of the complete sonatas and major works for piano of the great German composer Franz Schubert. This album features Schubert’s Sonata No. 14 in C major, D. 840 that bears the epithet "Reliquie". Shrouded in a mystery never entirely dispelled, the nickname suggests great depth of expression, a certain strangeness, and a touch of exoticism. The sonata’s unfinished status has, in some ways, guarded it from the interpretive overexposure to which Schubert’s most popular works have been subjected. We find here also the so beautiful Sonata in A Major, D. 664, played with a real tenderness by Mathieu Gaudet.

The enduring charm of Schubert's Impromptus lies in their status as his most beloved creations, and for good reason: they are, in essence, songs without words infused with melodies of rare beauty. Composed in 1827, just one year before the composer's passing, the first book, D. 899, speaks to the listener in a profoundly intimate and personal manner. The German Dances, D. 790, were Brahms' favorite set of Ländler, representing the folk pieces so typical of Schubert's genius. The Sonata No. 10 in C major, D. 613, reveals a composer exploring the limits of modulations and chromaticism, yet always prioritizing melodies."

"Breathtaking and dewy" - Sabine Devieilhe's album with songs by Mozart and R. Strauss.

Some musical objects resist scholarly classifications. Straddling two genres or requiring an unusual membership, they escape the boxes in which we like to lock each score before carefully storing it in a thematic catalogue. The same goes for mélodies composed by French people on foreign texts: should they be considered as French mélodies? Are they losing their French character? Are they even still mélodies or do they become lieder, songs, or any other form specific to the language used?