![Flemish Radio Choir, Brussels Philharmonic, Hervé Niquet, Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – David: Christophe Colomb & Musique de chambre, symphonique et sacrée (Portraits, Vol. 4) (2017) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/02/02/olw6jmfhdq8ta_600.md.jpg)
Flemish Radio Choir, Brussels Philharmonic, Hervé Niquet, Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – David: Christophe Colomb & Musique de chambre, symphonique et sacrée (Portraits, Vol. 4) (2017) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]
Each volume in the ‘Portraits’ series is devoted to a French composer who has now largely been forgotten. With performances by many talented artists, it presents a panorama of his works. The ‘Portrait’ of Félicien David aims to complement the discography already available with world premiere recordings of the composer’s works. Among these are a glimpse of his orchestral output, with the Symphony no. 3 and the Overture to his opéra-comique La Perle du Brésil, the work that really launched David on his operatic career. But it is above all Christophe Colomb (1847) that deserves mention, for this ode-symphonie with speaker was an ambitious follow-up to the success of Le Désert, performed at the Théâtre-Italien some years earlier. Nevertheless, this anthology does not forget that Félicien David was also a figure of the salons, admired for his intimate music and especially his songs. The programme therefore offers a chance to discover excerpts from the Mélodies orientales for solo piano, a selection of romances in the style of the 1840s, and the very rare early motets for chorus in varied scorings. The culmination of this Portrait is the restoration of Le Jugement dernier, which was intended as the concluding apotheosis of the opera Herculanum, but was finally deleted and has never been published until today. – Palazzetto Bru Zane / Ediciones Singulares
![François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles – Les nuits de Paris (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/02/20/qjx7au1fxa9ic_600.md.jpg)
François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles – Les nuits de Paris (2023) [FLAC 24 bit, 96 kHz]
The dance permeated every layer of Romantic society. From popular dance halls to courtly salons, people showed their public face, enjoyed themselves and met one another in waltz time or to the rhythms of the quadrille or the polka. At the same time, ballet gained unprecedented fame on the stage of the Paris Opéra. The music that accompanied this frantic round in France has long been neglected, whereas the Viennese have never ceased to celebrate their waltzes. Under the expert baton of François-Xavier Roth, the orchestra Les Siècles has set out to rediscover this French repertory using historical instruments. Their album explores the output of both established composers – Camille Saint-Saëns, Ambroise Thomas, Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet – and their colleagues who specialised in Terpsichorean entertainment, including Philippe Musard, Isaac Strauss, Émile Waldteufel and Hervé.
![Flemish Radio Choir, Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, Hervé Niquet – Gounod: Cantates et musique sacrée (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 88,2 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2023/02/02/uujbctckq85ha_600.md.jpg)
Flemish Radio Choir, Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, Hervé Niquet – Gounod: Cantates et musique sacrée (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 88,2 kHz]
An icon of French Romanticism thanks to the enduring popularity of his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette, Charles Gounod competed three times for the prestigious Prix de Rome between 1837 and 1839. Thus he composed three unpublished cantatas for soloists and orchestra, including Marie Stuart et Rizzio and La Vendetta, which he never had the opportunity to hear in performance. Revealed for the first time, these three cantatas, fine examples of French Romanticism, show a young composer with a remarkable flair for opera. In the end Fernand won him the coveted prize, carrying with it the privilege of a three-year stay (from 1840) at the Villa Medici in Rome. While there he produced several sacred compositions, which have also remained unknown until now. His splendid Messe vocale for unaccompanied choir, written in a neo-Palestrinian style, deserves a place on the programme of every vocal ensemble.
![Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks – Gounod: Le Tribut de Zamora (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]](https://imghd.xyz/images/2022/11/13/si04o8yh4ay4a_600.md.jpg)
Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks – Gounod: Le Tribut de Zamora (2018) [FLAC 24 bit, 48 kHz]
After Polyeucte (1878), Gounod tackled the operatic genre for the last time in 1881 with what is probably his most ambitious work, Le Tribut de Zamora. The action takes place in ninth-century Spain – from Act Two onwards, on ‘a picturesque site on the banks of the Guadalquivir before Córdoba’. Here Gounod – finally noted more for his neoclassical pastiches (Le Médecin malgré lui and Cinq-Mars) and his ardent Romanticism (Faust and Roméo et Juliette) – was given an opportunity to display his talents as an orchestrator and colourist in an exotic setting. He produced an epic in the tradition of French grand opéra, with numerous ensembles and showpiece airs. Despite an unequivocal success on its first run, despite the stirring national anthem ‘Debout! Enfants de l’Ibérie’, Le Tribut de Zamora sank into oblivion within a few short years. We can now appreciate in this opera precisely what certain detractors complained of at the time: the fact that we meet here once again the irresistible lyricism of Faust and Roméo et Juliette.