Vnicholas Mathieu

French chanteuse Mireille Mathieu is classically known for her illustrious French crooning during the '60s and '70s. In the early '60s, French pop vocalist Johnny Hallyday's manager Johnny Stark noticed Mathieu's enchanting vocalic beauty and later built her into her own star with the classic urchin hairdo and loud, vibrant costumes. She was quickly hailed as the next Edith Piaf and her 1965 performance run at the Paris Olympia sparked her recording relationship with Barclay Records. Singles such as "Mon Credo," "C'est Ton Nom," and "Qu'elle Est Belle" made Mathieu an international star in Europe while achieving mild success in the Americas, but her cover of Englebert Humperdinck's "The Last Waltz" was an impressive French interpretation that made her impact charts in Britain. Humperdinck returned the favor by choosing to sing Mathieu's "Les Bicyclettes de Belsize."

Aged 32, Mozart completed his three final symphonies in the space of a few months. Each is a musical miracle—operatic in scope, bursting with the composer’s most memorable tunes, and beautiful in its lightly worn complexity. Stylistically, they nudge music ever closer to the Romantic era of Beethoven, with strong emotions and variety of orchestral color. Ensemble Appassionato, made up of some of France’s best chamber musicians, approach them with this sense of theater, each phrase finely wrought and articulated. The tragic first movement to Symphony No. 40 has an inexorable drive, its Andante beautifully molded. The final, spectacular movement of the incredible “Jupiter” is pure adrenalin.