Fantastic international reviews of Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos recording!

Pascal Dusapin’s Seven Solos recording received several enthusiastic reviews in the last months. You can read three of those fantastic international reviews below.

La Scena Musicale ★★★

Not to be heard at a single sitting, these are fabulous miniatures for large orchestra – if such a thing is possible – a set of short stories spread across two discs. I’m not advocating plagiarism, but any film composer with a John Williams complex would get a new lease of life from listening to this tone master at work. Pascal Rophé conducts a surprisingly agile Belgian band.

By Norman Lebrecht





The New York Times

What the album makes immediately apparent is that Mr. Dusapin – like his teacher, Iannis Xenakis, as well as modern composers like Harrison Birtwistle and Magnus Lindberg – has an exceptional knack for yoking and shaping the raw power of massed orchestral forces. (…) Mr. Rophé and his Belgian players do superb work, and the recording is thrillingly dynamic.

By Steve Smith


The International Record Review

Although these pieces were premièred by several notable orchestras and conductors, their entrusting to the Liège orchestra should surprise no one given the sheer responsiveness of its players to the composer’s exacting demands, while the authority of Pascal Rophé is evident at every stage. Those who know the second and third pieces in Emmanuel Krivine’s expert recording will find the present accounts an audible advance. The sound makes the most of the Salle Philharmonique’s fabled sense of perspective, and there are detailed notes from Dusapin himself. The opportunity to hear the whole sequence being unlikely, a recording as fine as this ensures that a major undertaking by one of today’s most significant composers can be more fully appreciated.

By Richard Whitehouse

Bertrand Chamayou and the Quatuor Diotima reviewed by the New Yorker!

Bertrand Chamayou plays Franck

“In another naïve disk, the up-and-coming French pianist Bertrand Chamayou takes up an even greater challenge – the music of César Franck (1822-90), the composer whom people love to hate. Belgian-born, and with a German mother, Franck was the principal entry point for the influence of Liszt and Wagner during the early years of the Third Republic. Chamayou’s straightforward but stylish and invigorating accounts of such bedrock works as the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, and the Symphonic Variations (the latter offered with the dynamic accompaniment of Stéphane Denève and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra) suggest that perhaps a legacy of heavy-handed performances, rather than the music itself, has limited Franck’s appeal.”

The Quatuor Diotima plays Onslow

“The notion that any substantial German influence could affect France’s triumphant achievements in art, fashion, and cuisine would be, well, incroyable. But music, the relatively weaker sibling, has always been more susceptible to developments across the Rhine. It was George Onslow (1784-1853), the son of a transplanted English nobleman, who first gave France a serious chamber-music repertory – with the help of Beethoven, whose late quartets, performed in Paris in 1828, had a galvanizing effect on Onslow’s String Quartets Op. 54-56, newly recorded by the Quatuor Diotima (Naïve). These surprisingly powerful works, heard in suave and energetic performances, reveal a composer who combined a mastery of thematic development and chromatic harmony with a lightness of touch – and a bold, operatic lyricism – that remains utterly French.”

By Russell Platt

 You can also read the reviews on the New Yorker’s website.

All you always wanted to know about Christophe Rousset!

Ahead of his performance of Handel’s Semele at the Barbican last night, Christophe Rousset was interviewed by Dominic McHugh for the MusicalCriticism website.

Below are a few extracts from the interview:

One of the most versatile musicians of today, Christophe Rousset divides his time between such varied activities as conducting, researching new scores to perform and playing the harpsichord. (…)
This season, Rousset has conducted productions of Handel's Semele in Brussels and Paris, and he will bring the Paris cast to London's Barbican on Thursday for a concert performance. The soloists include Danielle de Niese and Vivica Genaux, and it promises to be a superb occasion. I took the opportunity to catch up with Rousset on the eve of that appearance to ask him about the piece, as well as his plans for the twentieth anniversary of Les Talens Lyriques next season.

Handel’s Semele

We begin with Semele. Rousset has commented on the 'sumptuous beauty' of the score. Does he read this sensuality as a subversion of the oratorio genre (which Handel was forced to associate with the piece), or as a successful attempt to blend aspects of both opera and oratorio? 'Surely if Handel calls Semele an oratorio, it is not in the sense of sacred music,' Rousset explains. 'To my mind, it is less of a subversion but more an attempt to blend opera to the new pattern which he felt compelled to adopt - an oratorio in the sense of a concert version of an opera. In reality, Congreve's libretto was meant to have been an opera. Only the choruses were added. And with the choruses and their large, almost Germanic architectural style, Handel was inspired by his own sacred music. The sensuality of Semele's music is a fact but this sacred music is not more controversial than sacred images in Rome such as Bernini's Ecstasy of Santa Teresa!'

Les Talens Lyriques

Next season sees the twentieth anniversary of Les Talens Lyriques. What was his goal when he established the group, and has he achieved what he hoped to? 'My goal in setting up Les Talens Lyriques was to rediscover the forgotten masterpieces of composers who wrote at the same time as Haendel and Mozart or to revisit the classics of composers such as Monteverdi and Cavalli. Les Talens Lyriques have achieved more than I ever hoped for in exploring so much undiscovered music. And having Decca publish CD's like Mondonville, Traetta or Leo, and most recently Louis Couperin and Froberger's keyboard music on the Aparte Label, was a real personal victory.'

His dreams and plans for the future

As a great musical archaeologist, what other unknown pieces would he like to perform? 'That's a secret!' he laughs. 'I won't tell you, but suffice to say that I would love to do more Traetta and Jomelli. Of all the lost operas, I would love to find one of Monteverdi's lost opera scores – actually not just one, but all of them! For example, it would be amazing to find Monteverdi's Ariana. We are aware of this opera because of the one famous surviving aria. Or alternatively Andromeda.
'I found the original manuscript for Lully's Bellérophon in an antiquarian bookshop. The hand-written manuscript dates back to the premiere in 1679. I later discovered a second edition from 1701. It's fascinating being able to consult the original manuscripts and later editions for how they vary. Maybe one day I will be lucky and find a completely lost work…'
What other ambitions does he have for the future? 'An absolute dream would be to be free to programme any work or opera. At the moment, I am mostly asked to conduct specific projects but it would be amazing to have carte blanche to produce anything. There are so many surprise rabbits I have stored up in my magician's hat. A major ambition is to explore more the music from the nineteenth century. The single aria of Les Troyens by Berlioz, which we recorded with Veronique Gens as part of the second Tragediennes disc on Virgin Classics, has given me a flavour for this repertoire. It's also convinced me that it isn't beyond the reach of a mere harpsichord player. We already have more plans to record more Berlioz and his contemporaries.'

By Dominic McHugh

The full interview is available on the MusicalCriticism website: there Christophe Rousset also talks about his musical education or other Naïve artists for instance.

Interview with Christophe Rousset

Christophe Rousset - master harpsichordist, conductor and musical archeologist - was once described by the Guardian as "music's greatest mischief-maker". He took it as a compliment. In 1991 he founded the stunningly virtuosic period instrument group Les Talens Lyriques and together they have trawled the archives in search of the forgotten composers and forgotten repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries - contemporaries of giants like Mozart and Handel who in their day were often more famous and more successful than the greats they inspired. Composers like Martin y Soler, Cimarosa, Jommelli, Traetta, and, of course, his compatriot Lully. In this exclusive audio podcast Rousset talks in his Paris apartment between performances of Handel's Semele.

The apartment is shared with a Burmese cat named Hermione and two no less exquisite and venerable harpsichords. In the "library", lavishly bound scores attest to Rousset's archival spirit with his latest pride and joy laid out on the table - the original full score and continuo parts for Louis XIV's favourite opera: Lully's Bellérophon which Rousset and his group will present in the first performances in modern times later this year - including one in the newly restored L'Opéra Royal at Versailles. Rousset's latest CD release is of rarely heard harpsichord suites by Louis Couperin, uncle of the better known Francis.

You can access the interview's audio file from the Arts Desk website.

Christophe Rousset conducting Les Talens Lyriques through Handel’s Semele in Paris… and tonight in London!

Last week, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques performed Handel’s Semele in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées. Tonight, they will be singing (and conducting!) Handel’s drama at the Barbican in London.

Below are some extracts from the Arts Desk review of the concert in Paris… and we hope other great reviews will come up after tonight’s performance!

“one of the most impressive Handel casts I've heard for years”

“With the emergence of this snaky, sexy, sequenced, Enlightenment glam rocker whose glistening red tails and bizarre cavorting mirrored perfectly the slinky bejewelled duplets on oboe and strings that Rousset was conjuring up, the whole production took off.”

“Peter Rose's incredibly solid, fabulously old-school interventions as a stentorian Cadmus and comically sleepy Somnus, reminded one how important a good bass is to the working of a Handel opera - and how rarely we hear one of this calibre.”

“Danielle de Niese's Semele should have been the star turn. And in many ways she was. In terms of coloratura, control and word-setting, she shone. And her voice is bigger, stronger than I have ever heard it.”

By Igor Toronyi-Lalic

You can read the full article here.

Vivaldi - Ottone in Villa: Fantastic interviews with the cast members

Our forthcoming release of Vivaldi's first opera Ottone in Villa on the Vivaldi Edition will soon be available to purchase (estimated release date: 25 October). To wet your appetites, here are some great videos taken from a performance of the work in Kraków featuring interviews with key cast members:

Recording details:

Sona Prina Ottone
Veronica Cangemi Cleonilla
Julia Lezhneza Caio Silio
Roberta Invernizzi Tullia / Ostilio
Topi Lehtipuu Decio

Il Giardino Armonico
Giovanni Antonini conductor

“With a terrific band and technically accomplished singers, Ottone in villa will be an exciting CD.” – The Arts Desk (http://bit.ly/9QsDpJ)

Let us know your thoughts!