Stéphane la Nuit

Louis Sclavis’s 13th ECM recording finds the French clarinetist drawing inspiration from two sources – the street art of Ernest Pignon-Ernest, and the interpretive originality of a splendid new quartet. Pignon-Ernest’s works were previously the subject of Sclavis’s highly acclaimed 2002 recording Napoli’s Walls. This time Sclavis looks at a broader range of the artist’s in situ collages from Ramallah to Rome, in search of “a dynamic, a movement that will give birth to a rhythm, an emotion, a song.”

From neighbouring Spain to the Orient, passing by eastern lands, the second big wave of exoticism which reached its summit between the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, unquestionably stimulated by numerous universal exhibitions organised in Europe, greatly influenced the writing of occidental composers in search of a new language, including many french composers, thirsty for new sonorities and looking to leave the academism of the past behind them. For Maurice Ravel who, excepting his one and only tour to the United States, had never undertaken a long journey to a far-away country, preferring to stay at home surrounded by small trinkets, most of which only held any value for their owner, finding inspiration in music from other countries or in literature which evoked unknown lands in a new aesthetic was not only a way of escaping the real world but also of creating his own universe, inhabited by imaginary characters where the "swiss clockmaker" could control everything, as he did with the cut-out stars in the shutters at his house in Monfort-L'Amaury which served to recreate a starlit night when the master, a victim of insomnia, managed to catch a few minutes of sleep in the middle of the day…

Ravel, Maurice - 10 Erato Recordings ( Almost Complete Works ) Director: Armin Jordan
Early 20th | 10CDs | FLAC | NO LOG | NO CUE | Easy CD-DA | 2,19 Gb | Complete Booklets(fr.eng.de) | Erato | RS

Behold Maurice Ravel's best known and some lesser known yet wonderfull works.
Nearly complete Stage, Piano, Orchestral & Chamber Works… Missing some of the shorter choral & vocal works.
Orchestral works by: Orchestre de le Suisse Romande directed by Armin Jordan with various soloists…

Will be updated regularily until complete.

Raphaël Pichon has invited Stéphane Degout to make his recording debut for harmonia mundi in a multifaceted exploration of the Underworld. The French baritone reincarnates the figure of Henri Larrivée, the famous tragedian of Rameau and Gluck. Around a reconstruction of an imaginary Mass of the Dead, sacred and secular merge, revealing some of the most extraordinary pieces from the operatic repertory of the Enlightenment. Music of death and mourning on an epic scale that inspires Pygmalion to overwhelming heights of pathos.

Even with hindsight being 20/20, it was easy to predict that France's Alcest, would eventually cast off black metal's influence on its sound. While Burzum's Filosofem provided inspiration for 2007's full-length debut, Souvenirs d'un Autre, recordings by My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, and Lush did too. Alcest may not have been the first "blackgaze" band, but until Deafheaven broke through with 2013's brilliant Sunbather, they were its most famous proponents. Shelter, Alcest's fourth album, finally transcends all of metal's musical, sonic, and aesthetic tropes. It is deeply indebted to its '90s British inspirational sources and wholly invested in the melodic sensibilities this group has displayed from the very beginning. Songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Neige (Stéphane Paut) and drummer Jean “Winterhalter” Deflandre enlisted Sigur Rós' Sundlaugin Studio, and its producer, Birgir Jón Birgisson…

Ernest Ansermet - Decca Recordings 1953-1967 (2006) {6CD Box Set Decca Original Masters Series 475 8140}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.18 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.00 Gb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 12 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1953-67, 2006 Decca Music / Universal Music | 475 8140
Classical / Orchestral

Ernest Ansermet enthusiasts will be thrilled by the items chosen for inclusion in this six-disc set dedicated to the Swiss conductor with L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the orchestra he founded and led. Many of them are first international CD releases – Haydn's Symphony No. 22, Beethoven's Symphony No. 4, and Sibelius' Symphony No. 4, along with nine others – while some of them are well-known and well-loved recordings from the conductor's huge catalog – Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite, Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin, and Honegger's Le roi David, along with 14 others.

Unlike Universal’s only fitfully excellent Ravel box, this Debussy Edition of the almost complete works has no weak spots. Puzzlingly, the Saxophone Rhapsody is missing, and so are L’Enfant prodigue (except for one aria) and La Damoiselle élue, among other items, but all of the other significant works are included, and in very fine performances.