Les Tuches Quatre

ATMA Classique is delighted to present Anguille sous roche (Something fishy!), the first recording by the latest incarnation of renowned viol duo Les Voix humaines. The new pairing consists of Mélisande Corriveau, who succeeds the duo’s co-founder Margaret Little, and Susie Napper. Corriveau and Napper have performed together for two decades as members of Les Voix humaines Consort. Both play on historic viols by London luthier, Barak Norman.

André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry’s three-act opera Guillaume Tell was first performed in 1791 at the Salle Favart of the Comédie-Italienne in Paris. The opera deals with the Swiss fight for freedom in the 14th century against the domination of the Habsburgs. The story of Wilhelm Tell is well-known.

The dance permeated every layer of Romantic society. From popular dance halls to courtly salons, people showed their public face, enjoyed themselves and met one another in waltz time or to the rhythms of the quadrille or the polka. At the same time, ballet gained unprecedented fame on the stage of the Paris Opéra. The music that accompanied this frantic round in France has long been neglected, whereas the Viennese have never ceased to celebrate their waltzes. Under the expert baton of François-Xavier Roth, the orchestra Les Siècles has set out to rediscover this French repertory using historical instruments. Their album explores the output of both established composers – Camille Saint-Saëns, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet – and their colleagues who specialised in Terpsichorean entertainment, including Philippe Musard, Isaac Strauss, Émile Waldteufel and Hervé.

After two recordings devoted to the harpsichord pieces of Savoyard composer Pancrace Royer, Christophe Rousset, this time conducting, turns to the composer's orchestral suites. Taken from Royer's operatic works and (with the exception of a live version of Pyrrhus) never previously recorded, these choreographic pieces reveal a new facet of the composer. The brilliance and virtuosity of his harpsichord compositions are well known; here we discover his gift for refinement and lyricism. These dances show Royer's singular sense of harmony and fine use of orchestral contrasts, as well as an almost whimsical rhetoric of the unexpected. Some of his best-known pieces, including the famous "March of the Scythians" from Zaïde, are to be heard here in their orchestral form. This recording will undoubtedly further the rediscovery of this iconoclastic composer, whose very personal style and innate sense of drama are given striking depth and relief here under the baton of Christophe Rousset.

Guilty of allowing the sacred fire to go out while declaring her love to the general Licinius, the Vestal Virgin Julia is sentenced to be buried alive. But her execution is averted by a divine intervention, which rekindles the altar flame and absolves the victim. The simple plot of Gaspare Spontini’s La Vestale achieved resounding success in 1807 thanks to the highly skilled treatment of the characters’ psychology and the transparency of the political allusions – Licinius is an allegory of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Yet the work is more than a mere piece of propaganda: it represents one of the links between the tragédie lyrique of the Ancien Régime and the future grand opéra à la française, even anticipating Bellinian bel canto.