Alain Héril

Heinrich VIII. als Oper? Da erhofft man sich einen großen Historienschinken - und man bekommt einen großen Historienschinken. Einen der feinsten Güte allerdings. Für seine 1883 uraufgeführte Oper hat der anglophilie Saint-Saëns sogar in der Bibliothek des Buckingham Palace recherchiert - von wo er schließlich die choralartige Leitmelodie für seine schillernde Hauptfigur mitbrachte. Spannend an der mit gediegenstem Handwerk ausgeführten Oper ist, dass sich Komponist und Librettist auch darüber hinaus spürbar für die historischen Hintergründe interessierten.

Heinrich VIII. als Oper? Da erhofft man sich einen großen Historienschinken - und man bekommt einen großen Historienschinken. Einen der feinsten Güte allerdings. Für seine 1883 uraufgeführte Oper hat der anglophilie Saint-Saëns sogar in der Bibliothek des Buckingham Palace recherchiert - von wo er schließlich die choralartige Leitmelodie für seine schillernde Hauptfigur mitbrachte. Spannend an der mit gediegenstem Handwerk ausgeführten Oper ist, dass sich Komponist und Librettist auch darüber hinaus spürbar für die historischen Hintergründe interessierten. Anders als etwa in Donizettis so viel berühmterer Henry-Oper Anna Bolena wird hier der Fokus nämlich nicht allein auf fiktive Liebe- und Eifersüchteleien der Protagonisten gelegt. Was Saint-Saëns ebenso eindringlich zeigt, das sind die politisch-religiösen Motivationen der Handelnden.

His Debussy and Chopin recordings for harmonia mundi already offer ample evidence that Alain Planès is highly adept at selecting a period instrument best suited for the repertoire.

The Go-Go-Goraguer sessions are a rare opportunity to discover what a potent jazz pianist Alain Goraguer was before he embarked on a new career as an arranger and a composer that would take him away from the realm of jazz. He would have been part of a great generation of French jazz pianists that includes fine stylists such as René Urtreger, Martial Solal, or Georges Arvanitas. The program is comprised of standards, songs from the French repertoire, and two originals. Classically trained, Goraguer's technique is beyond reproach, and his quite marvelous touch can be enjoyed on a wide range of material - from his tender version of "Darn That Dream" to a percussive reworking of "What Is This Thing Called Love?." Regardless of the tempo, his playing has a sparkling quality that does not fail to draw the listener in…

Alain Jean-Marie is a French jazz pianist. He made his first recordings in 1969 (released in 1997 as piano biguines). At the same time he played regularly with the trio of Winston Berkley and Jean Claude Montredon. In 1973, he moved to Paris, where he accompanied jazz musicians such as Chet Baker, Sonny Stitt, Art Farmer, Johnny Griffin, Lee Konitz, and Max Roach. In 1979, he debuted with his own trio (Al Levitt on percussion, Gus Nemeth and later Riccardo Del Fra on bass). Since the 1980s, he has regularly performed with Barney Wilen, including as a duo on albums such as La Notenbleue (1986) and Dreamtime (1992). In 1986, he regularly accompanied Dee Dee Bridgewater. In 1987 he recorded the album Latin Alley in a duo with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen…

When the very young Marie-Claire Alain recorded for Erato for the second time, in late winter of 1955, she did not necessarily suspect that she was participating in a long discographic odyssey. The organist would become one of the emblematic personalities of the Erato catalogue, working with the French firm up until the early 1990s. On 27 February 1955, in the church of Sainte-Clotilde in Paris’s 7th arrondissement, she began a series of recordings devoted to French composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She initiallly elaborated a brief programme of famous toccatas: Gigout, Widor and Boëllmann. Brisk tempos, nimble articulations, a wide variety of colours: Marie-Claire Alain charmed with her vivacious spirit – the famous piece by Widor (finale of the Fifth Symphony) is of noteworthy elegance. These youthful accounts already reveal all of Marie-Claire Alain’s affinities with this repertoire with which she has not always been associated and of which, in truth, she promotes a fleet, airy, supple vision. However, it was a few weeks later, around 13 March 1955, that Erato offered the young French organist, fully concentrated at the time on Buxtehude’s music, her greatest joy: she could defend ‘in studio’ the works of her elder brother, Jehan Alain. It is a veritable godsend to rediscover these youthful documents, keen and always pertinent, by Marie-Claire Alain, recorded in the church of Saint-Merri a little more than a year after her very first recording for Erato devoted to J. S. Bach.