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Guillaume de Machaut is the first “famous” composer in western musical history. In his time, the Middle Ages, most composers delivered their works anonymously (as part of their clerical duties), but Machaut was considered such a master of his creative art that he presented his works under his own name. He was in service of the highest monarchs, among whom Charles V, King of France. Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” is the first polyphonic Mass written, a complicated structure full of ingenious compositorial techniques. But even without the theoretical knowledge we are still spellbound by the haunting beauty and mystery of this masterpiece.

After three decades of Carmen in opéra comique-style, each one offering its own brand of authenticity, here we are back in the 19th century with the old grand opera version, with the Guiraud recitatives, tacked on after Bizet’s death. This was the way Carmen was usually performed until the 1950s, when producers and scholars started to reconsider the original.

What a pleasant surprise that this recording of Carmen, that, on the basis of its packaging looks like it was intended to be essentially a showcase for Andrea Bocelli, is an entirely respectable version of the opera. Much of the credit goes to Myung-Whun Chung, who leads Orchestra Philharmonique de Radio France in an exceptionally brisk account of the score, starting with a prelude that's bracingly impetuous, but he can be languidly flexible when the music calls for it. He uses a sort of hybrid version of the score, with some of the spoken dialogue and some of Guiraud's recitatives, and it works just fine.

Even so great a composer as Beethoven wrote music that is now almost completely neglected and unperformed. This sequence brings together a portfolio of such works that focuses on his variations on popular operatic music of the time by Giovanni Paisiello, Peter Winter and André Grétry, and includes the witty and inventive variations on an arietta by Vincenzo Righini. The Piano Sonata in C major, WoO 51 was found among Beethoven’s papers after his death and published in 1830. While it lacks a finale, it too offers a revealing look at an overlooked composition as do the two charming and unusual waltzes.

The name of the musical ensemble 'Contrasti' alludes to the two main emphases in the group's repertoire: works from the Renaissance and those of contemporary composers. This album draws together Renaissance repertoire and music of the 20th and 21st centuries, finding frissons in the similarities and contrasts between quite distant times.

A composer admired by his contemporaries, Josquin Desprez (ca 1450-1521) was a solitary artist who sublimated in his chansons the melancholy character and the elegance emblematic of the Renaissance. For their first recording, Dulces Exuviae explore the intimacy of these chansons in a fresh light: the sweet melodies are embellished by ornaments and accompanied on the lute, leaving ample room for improvisation, and thus allowing music to come out all the more alive, delicate and filled with emotion.