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.”

Nadia and Lili Boulanger, each in her own way, made a lasting impact on the musical world of the twentieth century. Sometimes luminous and full of hope, sometimes more somber, all their works testify to a poignant humanity. Going beyond the mélodies, Lucile Richardot, Anne de Fornel and the other artists assembled for this edition offer a multi-faceted portrait of the two composers, a form of musical narrative containing pieces that have never been published or recorded before.

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}
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© 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.