le Manager

A brilliant dancer before becoming “famous throughout Europe for his learned and elaborate sonatas, and for the elegance of his performance on the violin”, Jean-Marie Leclair is far more than the sum of his talents. His music is woven with the multiple threads of his life, carrying within it all the facets of his technical and musical explorations, his travels, his impressions, which have moulded man as much as musician.

Julien Chauvin and Le Concert de la Loge join Alpha and launch a new cycle devoted to Mozart. This project is a natural continuation of Julien Chauvin’s work of rediscovery focusing on the interpretation of the music of Haydn and his contemporaries in Paris in the late eighteenth century. The first recording assembles the majestic and grandiose Symphony no.41 in C major, known as the Jupiter, the Violin Concerto no.3 in G major and the Overture to Le nozze di Figaro. Julien Chauvin is, of course, the soloist in the violin concerto and, with his Concert de la Loge (which is no longer ‘Olympique’, since the French National Olympic Sports Committee forced the ensemble to amputate its name in 2016, despite the fact that it dates from…1782), they embark on a Mozartian marathon that promises to be electrifying!

Les morales traditionnelles sont devenues inopérantes en particulier pour les décideurs politiques. Hans Jonas propose une reformulation de l'éthique autour de l'idée de responsabilité, sous ses différents aspects (naturelle et contractuelle), et voit dans les parents et les hommes d'État deux modèles essentiels ; il discute les idéaux de progrès et les utopies (d'où le titre qui rappelle Le Principe espérance d'Ernst Bloch) et dessine une philosophie de l'" espérance responsable" fondée sur le respect. …

During the Carnival of Venice in 1637, a play ‘rappresentata in musica’ was opened to the public for the first time – a success. Opera was born and spread like wildfire. Venice had the largest number of theatres in the world. In 1677, the Teatro Sant’Angelo opened its doors on the campo of the same name. Tiny, chaotic, cheap and extremely productive, it was renowned for its musicians and its sets. This effervescence owes much to the figure of Vivaldi who, from 1705 onwards, regularly premiered his operas there and acted (with his father) as impresario. His own Arsilda , L’incoronazione di Dario and La verità in cimento triumphed there, but he also invited composers such as the young Fortunato Chelleri and Giovanni Alberto Ristori. The mezzo-soprano Adèle Charvet and her partners in Le Consort pay tribute to all these composers with a flamboyant programme that mixes famous arias and world premieres – no fewer than twelve of them!

"La biologie moderne fait renaître de vieux cauchemars. Elle a un parfum de savoir défendu. Elle réveille de vieux mythes. Elle dérange. Particulièrement scandaleuse apparaît la preuve qu'on peut facilement jouer avec la substance qui est à la base de toute vie sur cette planète. Spécialement impardonnable l'idée qu'il faut bien considérer l'évènement le plus extraordinaire de ce monde, la formation d'un être humain à partir d'un oeuf, comme le résultat d'un bricolage cosmique. …

After the critical success of the first volume of Beethoven’s symphonies, Jordi Savall now offers us from the Sixth to the Ninth.This latest publication crowns a nearly two-year world tour and confirms the extent to which the director renews our vision of these most famous works. The Concert des Nations shows that it also knows how to magnify the repertoire of the early 19th century, which will be confirmed by a forthcoming Schubert album.

Michel Corrette belongs to that not so rare species of 18th century composers whose diligence was at times their undoing. He was so prolific that he was dismissed by some in posterity as a superficial prolific writer, a fate he shared with Vivaldi, for example. In his time, Corrette was simply a keyboard whiz: in Paris, he held various organist posts, among others in the service of the Jesuits, composed sacred and secular vocal and instrumental music, and directed a music school. Thus we owe him a number of excellent school works for various instruments. His musical passion, however, was for the queen of instruments: With his works, he was able to elicit a playful lightness from the organ, which is otherwise associated with powerful sounds, like hardly anyone else. In their new recording, Hannfried Lucke and the orchestra le phénix present the concertante character with virtuoso brilliance.

‘Well, what a surprise – a divine surprise! I have delighted in immersing myself in the world of Handel for more than forty years now. But I must admit that I experienced yet another lesson in strength and joy when I toured and recorded the Dettingen Te Deum and the Coronation Anthems ’, says Hervé Niquet. As a lover of large orchestral formations, he has assembled a number of instrumentalists and singers close to the (gigantic) forces used at the premiere, with a large band of oboes, bassoons and trumpets, and assigned the solo arias to the entire ‘chapel’. Niquet speaks of ‘the glittering power of this ceremonial music concocted by a Handel conscious of placing the best of his genius at the service of the crown and of history’, and he in turn invests all his enthusiasm and expressiveness in these works combining ‘grace and strength’. Fans of Champions League football will recognise in Zadok the Priest the theme of that competition’s anthem!