Philippe Katerinetotal à L'ouest

Philippe Hersant is a French composer. He studied at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique, Paris. From the 1960s onwards he was one of the leading European composers who contributed to a profound renewal of contemporary musical creation during the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Philippe Besombes is an underground but now cult french artist from the 70's avant garde-prog scene. After a student doctoral degree to become a chemist he turned to music and was partly formed by Stockhusen and Xenakis. He rapidly showed an interest to electronic synth dispositifs (AKS, MiniMoog, Polyphonic ensemble Korg…). In 1976 Philippe Besombes had opened his own recording studio with Jean-Louis Rizet. He produced three major albums under his name. He recorded his most notorious effort in 1975 with Jean Louis Rizet. The duo published the enigmatic and complex "Pôle" for synthesisers orchestration and shimmering, spacious, nebulous electronic textures. The same year Besombes recorded the soundtrack of the movie "Libra". The music delivers an hybridation of electroacoustic experimentations, bizarre ambient soundscapes and jazzy-folkish ingredients. In 1976 "Ceci est Cela" is a collection of experimental electronic pieces more in the genre of Pierre Henry and Stokhausen).

This program also makes a perfect introduction to the world of the cantatas in general for anyone who loves Bach's instrumental music or larger vocal works (like the B minor Mass), but who has been hesitating before taking the plunge into the vast sea of his cantata production. Why? Simple: two of these pieces contain music found elsewhere in Bach's output. For example, the first chorus of BWV 120 became the concluding number (Et expecto) of the B minor Mass "Credo". BWV 29 opens with an almost shockingly brilliant arrangement (as an organ concerto) of the opening movement of the E major violin partita, followed by the chorus that appears in the B minor Mass as both the "Gratias" and the "Dona Nobis Pacem" (the German original means exactly the same thing as the Gratias: "We thank thee," making the adaptation entirely apropos). All three cantatas feature brilliant writing for trumpets (four of them in BWV 119) and drums, and were written for civic ceremonies in Leipzig. And if the words are often less than inspiring to us now, no one can argue that Bach didn't rise to the occasion musically.

Fondée en 1988 par un petit groupe d'amis réunis autour du violoniste Philippe Couvert, L'académie Sainte-Cécile est un ensemble instrumental à géométrie variable articulé autour d'un trio (flûtes, vièles, clavicythérium) pour les musiques médiévales, d'une paire de violons et basse (clavecin, violoncelle) pour le répertoire baroque, d'un quatuor à cordes ou trio avec forte-piano pour le classique et romantique. Cet ensemble s'élargit occasionnellement à un effectif semi orchestral, toujours jouant sans chef à l'exemple de ses modèles historiques des XVIIè et XVIIIè siècles.