CLAUDE DEBUSSY Musiques du Prix de Rome
Flemish Radio Choir Brussels Philharmonic Hervé Niquet
GES 922206-F
Un recueil d’essais sur Debussy dans la Paris fin-de-siècle: les rapports entre musique et politique, l’émergence des modernités, l’incroyable isolement de Debussy à la Villa Médicis… Contributions de Denis Herlin, Steven Huebner, France Lechleiter et Jann Pasler, éditées par Denis Herlin et Alexandre Dratwicki.
Édition limitée et numérotée a 2900 exemplaires
1 Livre + 2 CDs
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Performing artists
Guylaine Girard, soprano Sophie Marilley, mezzo-soprano Bernard Richter, ténor Alain Buet, baryton Marie-Josèphe Jude, piano Jean-François Heisser, piano
Production details
Enregistrement des œuvres avec chœur et piano réalisé à l’Église des Jésuites, Waversebaan à Heverlee les 25 et 26 juin 2009. Enregistrement des œuvres avec orchestre réalisé à la Salle Fiocco de La Monnaie à Bruxelles du 1er au 3 juillet 2009 Prise de son: Manuel Mohino Direction artistique: Manuel Mohino & Hervé Niquet Design: Valentín Iglesias Production exécutive: Carlos Céster
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CLAUDE DEBUSSY
Musiques du Prix de Rome
CD I [48:17] Le Gladiateur (1883) Invocation (1883) La Damoiselle élue (1888)
CD II [53:52] Printemps (1887) Le Printemps (1884) Salut Printemps (1882) L’Enfant prodigue (1884)
About this CD
Claude Debussy fut candidat à trois reprises au prix de Rome pendant la décennie la plus novatrice de ce concours qui permettait aux vainqueurs de passer plusieurs années à la Villa Médicis, à Rome, aux frais du gouvernement français. Entre 1880 et 1890, en effet, l’État encouragea les personnalités artistiques originales, rompant avec les accusations récurrentes d’« académisme ». Les lauréats auront ainsi pour noms Bruneau, Piern é, Debussy, Dukas, Leroux, Charpentier... Le programme proposé dans ce double disque forme un ensemble d’inédits composés entre 1882 et 1888, en particulier Le Gladiateur et les premières versions de L’Enfant prodigue (dont seule la réorchestration de 1906 est parfois rejouée) et de Printemps, pièce originale pour chœur et piano à quatre mains transformée plus tard en suite symphonique. Une version pour piano et voix de La Damoiselle élue (la seule supervisée par Debussy) et les chœurs des concours de 1882, 1883 et 1884 complètent ce panorama d’œuvres jusqu’alors inconnues de Debussy.
Hervé Niquet is far less interested in being known as a Baroque music specialist than for his passionate interest in all of French music, especially its vocal and lyrical compositions and nowadays he is as liable to be found directing a symphony orchestra as his own period instrument ensemble Le Concert Spirituel. It may come, for some, as a surprise to find Niquet teaming up with the Brussels Philharmonic to record Debussy but this future release will mark the inauguration of a new adventure for Niquet and Glossa focusing on the music associated with the Prix de Rome competition which drew in scores of leading French composers all the way from 1803 through 1968. [read more...]
For its first DVD release Glossa has chosen a veritable spectacular, combining the strong creative ideas represented by one of its established artistic teams in Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel, the fabulously funny and hugely-successful French comedy duo of Shirley and Dino (Corinne and Gilles Benizio in real life), a film director in Olivier Simonnet with proven experience in the music of the Baroque and a masterpiece of a dramatick operatic score in Henry Purcell’s King Arthur. [read more...]
Taking a leading role in the revival of tragédies lyriques (or tragédies en musique), the best of the French Baroque opera tradition, is a long, daunting (and expensive) challenge but one which Hervé Niquet has been keen to accept. Present as a singer in the chorus of Les Arts Florissants in 1987 when William Christie put on Lully’s Atys, Niquet formed his own ensemble, Le Concert Spirituel that same year. Since that time he has balanced his own endeavours to stage (and record) key French tragédies with his other musical interests, which extend from Monteverdi to Purcell and Handel (soon to be reissued – now on SACD – is Niquet’s recording of the Fireworks and Water Music suites) right the way through to later composers such as Schumann, Gounod and d’Indy.[read more...]
This coming together of two current dynamic musical forces in the Flemish Radio Choir and the Danish conductor Bo Holten in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach signals the latest development in Glossa’s association with the Brussels-based professional choral ensemble, which has already seen the artistry, versatility and flexibility of the 24 singers displayed in Zoltán Kodály’s Missa brevis and Sergei Rachmaninov’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. [read more...]
In the world of choral music the increasingly higher standards reached in recent years by a number of chamber-sized choirs has been a hugely encouraging development. With every intention and capacity to join such an elite group is Glossa’s recent signing, the Vlaams Radio Koor from Belgium – the Flemish Radio Choir. Although the choir has been in existence for 70 years it is only in the last decade or so that it has been able to move itself from being an all-purpose studio-based operation for broadcasting purposes and raise its standards. Such is its success at home that it now acts as a catalyst for amateur choirs in the Flanders region in areas such as repertoire and performance. Additionally it is organizing projects which will be involving students from various Flemish music conservatories. [read more...]