Yves Jean

Réfutant l'idée reçue qui fait de Raymond Poulidor un éternel deuxième, retrace, de 1960 à 1977, la carrière du coureur cycliste aux 189 victoires. …

Biographie consacrée au coureur cycliste français, revenant à la fois sur ses nombreux succès et sur la faible popularité dont il jouissait auprès du public français, notamment à l'égard de sa rivalité avec Raymond Poulidor. …

Along with Wit's Naxos recording, this is one of the best versions of Messiaen's phantasmagoric Turangalîla-Symphonie available, and it's very different: swifter, more obviously virtuosic in concept, perhaps a touch less warm in consequence, and engineered with greater “in your face” immediacy. The playing of the Concertgebouw, always a wonderful Messiaen orchestra, is stunning throughout. Chailly revels in the music's weirdness. The Ondes Martinot, for example, is particularly well captured. It's interesting how earlier performances tended to minimize its presence, perhaps for fear that is would sound silly, which of course it does, redeemed by the composer's utter seriousness and obliviousness to anything that smacks of humor. In any case, it's not all noise and bluster. The Garden of Love's Sleep is gorgeous, hypnotic, but happily still flowing, while the three Turangalîla rhythmic studies have remarkable clarity. Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays the solo piano part magnificently, really as well as anyone else ever has.

Jean-François Madeuf and Pierre-Yves Madeuf are two of the leading exponents of the historically informed performance practice as applied to wind instruments. On natural horn or natural trumpet they can be found in many of Europe’s main early music ensembles and orchestras. On this new Accent CD, they team up with Sigiswald Kuijken’s exquisite La Petite Bande to perform a set of Georg Philipp Telemann concertos as they have never been heard before on record: using natural trumpets and horns, and bringing the pieces back to their original chamber music context.

Chabrier’s extraordinary, if incomplete, opera is surely a precursor to Salome and approaches even that most lurid work in the gloriously opulent sensuality of its music. Performed at the Edinburgh Festival by some of the greatest singers of the day and recorded live by Hyperion, this thrilling performance stunned critics and public alike. A genuinely wonderful discovery.

Gershwin Rhapsody - Jean-Yves Thibaudet & Michael Feinstein / Commemorating the 1924 premiere of Rhapsody in Blue, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet collabs with Michael Feinstein, the 'one-man encyclopaedia of the Great American Songbook' to celebrate the magic of Gershwin. Gershwin Rhapsody sees best-loved Gershwin melodies sit alongside world premiere recordings of 4 rediscovered Gershwin songs: 'Graceful and Elegant', 'Dance of the Waves', 'Sutton Place' and 'Under the Cinnamon Tree'.

In order to expand the breadth of his performance career, Thibold has been actively exploring repertoire that is less popularly recorded in recent years. These two piano concertos by Mendelssohn are crystal clear and graceful under Thiebaud's skillful hands. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is the oldest orchestra in the world. Mendelssohn was invited to be the fifth conductor of the orchestra in 1835. Therefore, this episode invites them to take on the important responsibility of concerto, which is particularly meaningful.

The gleaming smile in the cover shot belongs to a young mezzo-soprano coasting at the top of her game, thrilled at the chance to show off in the 400-year-old Teatro Olimpico in Vicenze. The cheers interspersed throughout this June 1998 concert are her adoring fellow Italians. Count yourself lucky to be able to join them and Cecilia Bartoli with a recording that faithfully reflects the scrumptious range of both her voice and emotional dynamics.