Famed for their appearance in Christophe Barratier's 2004 Oscar-nominated Les Choristes, Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Marc (known in Spain as Los Chicos del Coro de Saint-Marc) are one of the world's most popular children's choirs. Formed in 1986 by director Nicolas Porte at Lyon's Saint-Marc College, the mixed choir of 75 singers, aged ten to 15, has performed its mixture of spiritual hymns, Gregorian chants, and contemporary classical pieces across Europe, the U.S., and Asia ever since.
This CD contains a program devoted entirely to the figure of John Brudieu (Limoges, 1520? - La Seu d´Urgell 1591), one of the masters of Renaissance Europe and one of the most famous composers of the Catalonian countries. He was master of La Seu d´Urgell, where a Mass was conserved defunctorum cum Quator vocibus. That is a Requiem Mass for 4 voices, accompanied by two more songs. The three works can be framed in the ordinary of the mass for the dead: an input, a communion and one output. Thus establishing a synergy between the works and liturgical texts (in latin) to be modified by madrigals (in catalan). The group Exaudi We offer a quality recreation and beauty along with extraordinary career in Columna Musica.
The playing of the excellent National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland - another Naxos discovery - is polished and sympathetic to the Tchaikovskian ardour… A fine, super bargain.
Born in the small town of Votkinsk in 1840, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky achieved considerable renown during his own lifetime and is today hailed as one of the world’s best-loved composers. Having initially studied law before enrolling at the St Petersburg Conservatory aged 22, he is best remembered for his symphonies, operas and ballets; ranking among his lesser-known creations, however, are the Orchestral Suites.
Nouvelles Lectures Cosmopolites is a project of French composer Julien Ash, leader and only permanent member, helped by various artists. NLC combines Neo-Classical music with electronics for a unique example of modern chamber music. Piano is joined by violin, acoustic guitar, and acoustic bass plus ambient electronics and processed voices (singing and speaking).
Charpentier’s Médée is one of the glories of the Baroque. Medea’s betrayal by Jason, her comprehensive revenge and the plight of those caught up in this epic tragedy prompted Charpentier to compose music of devastating power. Transcending the constraints of the Lullian tragédie lyrique, he produced characterisations of astonishing complexity and invested vast stretches of music with a dramatic pace and a harmonic richness rivalled among contemporaries only by Purcell. The electrifying exchanges of the third act, mingling pathos with extreme violence, alone put Charpentier on the same imaginative level as Rameau and Berlioz. The machinations of the fourth act and the dénouement in the fifth maintain the same captivating impetus.
"Bernstein stamps his outsize personality on every bar and regularly has you convinced it is Mahler's own" (Gramophone). Bernstein's youthful, urgent conducting of the Fourth takes a refreshing slant on the symphony's classical temper, while in the Fifth he coaxes from the Vienna Philharmonic a detailed response to the work's tragic beginning and triumphant conclusion. The reverie of the Adagietto is uniquely intense in this performance. Bernstein's thrilling traversal of the epic Sixth Symphony comes from the end of his Mahler cycle in Vienna, during which the conductor and his orchestra forged an unbreakable bond.
Pierre Barouh est un poète, nous le savons depuis longtemps et nombre de ses succès populaires sont là pour le prouver. Mais, saviez vous qu'il était un écologiste avant l'heure ? Jugez vous même, en sélectionnant au hasard quelques titres de sa merveilleuse compilation: 1951, Pierre a quinze ans, il écrit :"Lorsque j'étais phoque", plaidoyer magnifique pour cet animal aujourd'hui en grand danger et hymne à la beauté de notre planète. Nous sommes au lendemain de la deuxième guerre mondiale, au début d'un siècle de dévastation de la nature.