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Jérémie Rhorer and Le Cercle de l'Harmonie launch a new collaboration with Alpha Classics, with several projects planned, following the Mozart operas released on the label in 2016 and 2017. Here they tackle a monument of the sacred repertoire that is fascinating for its rich, complex, even ‘mysterious’ conception. Rhorer tells us that his interpretation pays close attention to the question of tempi, which have often become progressively slower and heavier since the post-Romantic period: the tempi have ‘a direct bearing on the vocal comfort of the singers, since breath control is one of the great difficulties of this work’, he says. For this recording, he has called in a quartet of top-flight soloists along with the Audi Jugendchorakademie, a remarkable German youth choir founded in 2007. In conjunction with his period-instrument orchestra, soon to celebrate its twentieth anniversary, they offer a passionate vision of Beethoven’s masterpiece.

Comment comprenons-nous la nature du temps qui passe ? Quelle est notre relation au temps ? Comment le structurons-nous ?
Les appréciations ou préférences temporelles individuelles de chacun vont avoir une incidence majeure sur le comportement. Certains vont privilégier les strictes planifications et hiérarchisations du temps, d'autres vont ressentir une urgence sourde et constante de ce temps qui s'égrène quel que soit le contexte. …

Flautist Emmanuel Pahud and pianist Éric Le Sage with present a new album "Mozart Stories", featuring some of Mozart's best sonatas which were originally written for Violin and Piano, now arranged for Flute. Emmanuel Pahud has been captivated by the works of Mozart from a young age! As he puts it, "Mozart is the reason why I became a musician". The musician also shares a birthday with Mozrt which emphasises his reverance for the great composer.

While Fauré's Requiem is a monument of French sacred music, Gounod's Messe de Clovis is much less well known. It was composed from 1891 onwards as a tribute to Clovis who, like Joan of Arc, had become an iconic figure after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. The two works share a reflective and intimate character that gives the impression of a return to the purity of Gregorian chant, although this does not detract from the jubilant character of Fauré's Requiem: "this warm, luxuriant sound leads to an elevation of the spirit", says Hervé Niquet. The work is recorded here in its 1893 version, in an orchestration that uses neither violins nor woodwind; a later version with full orchestra was published in July 1900. O salutaris by Louis Aubert (1877-1968) for soprano, violin, harp, organ and choir and L'Adagio for violin and organ by André Caplet (1878-1925) complete this programme, a co-production with the Palazzetto Bru Zane and performed with fervour by the Concert Spirituel.

Although he naturally composed a great deal for the organ, Vierne was also a great symphonist, an outstanding colourist and melodist. A complete musician, he composed about ten works of chamber music, refined and inherited from his romantic masters (Wagner, Widor and Franck mainly). Also an accomplished pianist, he loves to accompany singers and instrumentalists and knows how to subtly marry timbres, as this recording shows.