POULENC Stabat Mater / Les Biches
Stéphane Dénève, the new principal conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra of SWR, makes his debut recording with a thoughtful and exceptionally well-balanced program of music by the French composer Francis Poulenc. As has been said many times before, Poulenc was both a monk and a rascal; deeply religious one hand, while enjoying celebrity and flamboyant lifestyle on the other. These two sides of his personality are beautifully represented in the program of this CD. First off, there is the...
Read MoreDEBUSSY: Orchestral Music
For their final Season Denève and the RSNO have been celebrating the works of Claude Debussy, to mark the 150th anniversary of the French composer’s birth in 2012 and in May Chandos releases the double CD recording by Denève and the RSNO of his major orchestral works. THE RSNO has immortalised its recent live survey of Debussy’s orchestral works on this exceptional double disc, and the care and attention that has gone into making these...
Read MoreROUSSEL: Le Festin de l’araigneé / Padmavati Suites 1 & 2
One of Roussel’s most performed orchestral works, Le Festin de l’araignée (The Spider’s Banquet) was composed during his earlier impressionistic period, and depicts the beauty and violence of insect life in a garden. Roussel’s experiences as a lieutenant in the French Navy first introduced him to Eastern influences, and the ‘opera-ballet’ Padmâvatî was inspired by his later visit to the ancient city of Chittor in Rajasthan state of western India. It uses aspects of Indian music to evoke this...
Read MoreGUILLAUME CONNESSON: Cosmic Trilogy / The Shining One
Released January 2010. Recognised as one of the youngest and most gifted contemporary composers, Guillaume Connesson brings together an imaginatively diffuse range of influences, from the riches of the musical traditions of his native France to John Adams, Steve Reich and the funk of James Brown. During the composition of the works making up the Cosmic Trilogy Connesson also drew inspiration from such sources as the paintings of Kandinsky and the physics of Stephen Hawking. After first discovering Connesson’s...
Read MoreFranck: Symphonic Variations / Les Djinns / Piano Works
Released May 2010. Prélude, choral & fugue Symphonic Variations Prelude, Aria & Final Les Djinns Symphonic Poem Prelude, fugue & variation Following his highly acclaimed award-winning debut album on Naïve, Bertrand Chamayou collaborates with one of Europe’s leading symphony orchestras, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, to record solo and orchestral works by César Franck. Fuelled by the desire to bring César Franck’s music out of obscurity, Bertrand Chamayou here demonstrates...
Read MoreROUSSEL: Symphony No.1 ‘Le poeme de la foret’ etc
Released November 2009. Résurrection, Roussel’s first orchestral work, is a delicate and mysterious piece inspired by Tolstoy’s last novel, while Le marchand de sable qui passe (The Sandman) is a tuneful, colourfully orchestrated suite. His Symphony No. 1 ‘Poem of the Forest’ traces the cycle of seasons from winter to autumn through its four movements. The orchestra plays marvelously with fine control and solo work as it adds an English accent to Roussel to fine...
Read MoreROUSSEL: Symphony No.2 / Pour une fete de printemps / Suite in F
Released April 2008. A perennial outsider in French music, Albert Roussel was the tutor of a whole generation of composers, including such diverse figures as Eric Satie and Edgard Varèse. The three works inclided here outline the transitional phase in which Roussel’s mature idiom took shape. Most important of these is the Second Symphony with its densely intricate orchestration and its wide range of expression, while Pour une fête de printemps is a symphonic poem that could be thought of as...
Read MoreROUSSEL: Bacchus et Ariane (Complete Ballet) / Symphony No.3
Released May 2007. Roussel’s two most successful works, the ballet Bacchus et Ariane and Symphony No. 3 demonstrate his mature, neo-classical idiom. The Third Symphony, one of a number of works commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for its fiftieth anniversary season, represents the composer’s neo-classical language at its most incisive. Notable for opening and closing movements which are propelled with unstoppable momentum, this is the only symphony by Roussel to have retained its place in the...
Read MoreROUSSEL: Symphony No. 4 / Rapsodie Flamande etc.
Released March 2010. Following a period of soul-searching during the mid-1920s, and as his music gained success outside France during the 1930s, Albert Roussel took the rhythmic dynamism, thematic integration and formal lucidity of his Third Symphony (8.570245) to new heights with his less well-known Fourth, notable for its intensely wrought slow movement. The pungent Sinfonietta, the Flemish Rhapsody, which draws on popular songs of the Belgian provinces, the picturesque Petite Suite and the...
Read MoreROUSSEL: The Complete Symphonies and other Orchestral Works (Box Set)
Released March 2010. This is one of the most persuasive and idiomatic Roussel discs in the CD catalogue and I enthusiastically commend it to you.’ Words I used in a review that coupled the Second Symphony with the Suite in F and Pour une fête de printemps. It now forms part of a boxed set with other well reviewed issues in this complete symphony cycle. He was one of the many artists whose was emotionally and profoundly effected by the First World War, his output after that period taking on an...
Read MorePROKOFIEV: The Love for Three Oranges (DVD)
Released August 2006. Prokofiev’s enchantingly surreal commedia dell’arte masterwork is turned into a spectacular triumph of total theatre in this vital production from the Amsterdam Muziektheater. De Nederlandse Opera has chosen to use the more flexible French libretto of the 1921 premiere, a pertinent choice which has the advantage of accentuating the aesthetic common ground shared by Prokofiev and Les Six. Stéphane Denève’s brilliant musical direction inspires outstanding performances from the soloists...
Read MorePRELJOCAJ/MOZART: Le Parc
Bel Air Classiques Isabelle Guerin, Laurent Hilaire Paris Opera Ballet Paris Opera Orchestra Conductor Stéphane Denève DVD Running time: 103 mins Click here to...
Read MorePOULENC: Concerto pour 2 pianos
Released in 2004 Concerto pour deux pianos et orchestre Frank Braley, piano Eric le Sage, piano Concerto pour piano et orchestre Aubade Eric le Sage, piano Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège In this brightly sparkling disc by pianists Frank Braley and Eric le Sage, with conductor Stéphane Denève directing the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège of the Concerto pour deux pianos et orchestre, the Concerto pour piano et orchestra, and the Aubade pour piano et orchestra, one hears...
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Stéphane's Orchestras
