Céline b

Her first English-language effort following a pair of mid-decade personal tragedies, Celine Dion's 12th set Courage is a transformative, cathartic release for the powerhouse vocalist that carries listeners through her process of healing and moving on. While the deaths of her husband and brother inform much of the album, they do not completely define it. Rather, Dion's phoenix-from-the-ashes power shines and reveals a confident rebirth as she rebuilds life and reclaims herself. Paired with its intentionally uplifting French-language predecessor, 2016's Encore un Soir, Courage continues to track Dion's grief, just with a contemporary pop angle. While the comforting Encore was suffused with traditional pop-guitar backing, Courage grasps the spirit of the late 2010s with vigor, recruiting a team of co-writers including David Guetta and Skylar Grey.

For this second recording devoted to French Baroque music for two solo transverse flutes, Marie-Céline Labbé and Marion Treupel-Franck perform the six suites by Pierre Danican Philidor (1681 1731), pieces taken from the three collections published by the composer in Paris in 1717 and 1718. Written in a highly original style in which one senses the spirit of freedom blowing over Versailles and France during the regency of the Duke d’Orléans, these short suites, in addition to the principal dances in vogue at the court of Versailles in the early 18th century, each comprise a fugue.

Her first English-language effort following a pair of mid-decade personal tragedies, Celine Dion's 12th set Courage is a transformative, cathartic release for the powerhouse vocalist that carries listeners through her process of healing and moving on. While the deaths of her husband and brother inform much of the album, they do not completely define it. Rather, Dion's phoenix-from-the-ashes power shines and reveals a confident rebirth as she rebuilds life and reclaims herself. Paired with its intentionally uplifting French-language predecessor, 2016's Encore un Soir, Courage continues to track Dion's grief, just with a contemporary pop angle.