Mon Peme Harmonique Les Canards Tyroliens

Fascinated by the interplay of echoes from one past to another, Vincent Dumestre and Stéphanie d’Oustrac found an affinity in the project Mon Amant de Saint-Jean , their very first collaboration, and aimed to make it a unique musical adventure: a recital in which the atmosphere of the chansons of the Années Folles infuses early music with its sweet madness. In 1904, the great cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert was invited to the home of the Casadesus family, the founders of the Société des Instruments Anciens (Early instrument society): the Baroque fraternised with the café-concert. Around the same time, in the revue Paris qui chante, an aria by Scarlatti rubbed shoulders with the coarse language of Aristide Bruant and Paulin, while Gaston Dumestre, a singer at the cabaret Le Chat Noir (and one of Vincent’s ancestors!), sang chansons réalistes while accompanying himself on the theorbo presented to him by Oscar II of Sweden: ‘It is in language that we must seek the common driving force. These cabaret singers relished a very special flavour, a vigour, a raciness in the words of the Baroque era’, concludes Vincent Dumestre.

Brilliant and moving"" vocal ensemble Les Canards Chantants and ""groundbreaking, gutsy"" (Early Music America Magazine) Baroque string band ACRONYM present the first recording of Giovanni Valentini's ""Secondo libro de madrigali"" (Venice, 1616)the earliest known madrigal collection to call for instruments other than continuoexactly four hundred years after its publication. Giovanni Valentini was born in 1582 in or around Venice. In 1614 he joined the court of the Archduke Ferdinand at Graz, and upon Ferdinands 1619 election Vaneltini moved to Vienna to serve as Imperial organist. From the 1620s through the 1640s, Valentini oversaw much of the musical life of Vienna. He was music tutor to the Imperial family and retained his position of Hofkapellmeister under Ferdinand III, who took the throne in 1637.

Dalida was one of the most important female singers in the history of French music, yet she is hardly known in Britain or America. Her career spanned 32 years from 1956 to 1987, when she committed suicide. She recorded for the Barclay label until 1970, when she moved to her brother's label, Orlando. This collection contains (as far as I know) every song she recorded for Barclay in it's original form (no remixes here). Another massive boxed set is available covering all her Orlando recordings. The CD's that make up the two boxed sets were all made available separately.