Playlist audio #4

By Nicolas Bucher, general manager of CMBV

Is a first reading list like a first novel? You would like to put everything on it!
Anyway, this is the trap in which I fell into when I started the exercise…
So finally, here is what you would find if you pressed “Play":

As being Saint-Gervais’ organist for two years now, I could not have opened this list differently than with the Couperin, uncle and nephew. First, there is Louis, under the electric and poetic fingers of Benoît Babel, then François, with an excerpt from La Française, by the magnificent chamber music ensemble gathered around Christophe Rousset.

I then gathered two madeleines, among my first French baroque music memories, those that immediately followed my first discovery of this repertoire via the organ (and again François Couperin, of course): Lully's motet Omnes Gentes by the inextinguishably fresh play of the Arts Florissants and some excerpts from Alceste by Jean-Claude Malgoire. A triple CD that I have literally worn...

The next part of the list brings us to the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles and to my personal favorites (coups de cœur), in the midst of our numerous projects that we have carried out over the past 5 years.

For those who will discover it I hope you will, as much as I do, like Charles-Hubert Gervais’ music, from which you will find excerpts of his lyrical tragedy Hypermnestre and, for those who are on Qobuz, excerpts of the great motet Super Flumina Babylonis, by the beautiful Les Ombres ensemble.

Already present in other CMBV reading lists, Rameau's Zoroastre. I am delighted and proud of this recording that I find quite spectacular and I have taken, for you to listen (and for me!), the end of the 4^th act as well as its energy and theatrical efficiency, masterfully led by Alexis Kossenko and his luxurious stage.

To illustrate my kind affection to our Pages and Chantres, I have chosen three excerpts from the impressive disc we recorded with the Maîtrise de Radio-France: Charpentier's Messe à quatre chœurs (in this case, his Agnus dei), as well as the moving ending of the Cantique des trois enfants dans la fournaise by Philippe Hersant, for whom I love his music as much as his personality. That is to say…

A detour through the disc Lady Louise by Lucile Tessier and her ensemble Leviathan that we had the chance to accompany in a residency called "emergence". A bit of Lully, English music and English comedy, performed in part by a team that I had the pleasure and the honour to see evolve when they were students at the CNSMD of Lyon and for whom I was the director of studies, a few years ago…

Two tracks in the form of a “bis”: a Grigny of my own making. It is not very modest, but Hortus, my publisher, would not have forgiven me for this dismissal and a splendid aria by Marin Marais interpreted by Judith Van Wanroij at the top of her art.

Finally, a wink for this summer, should your trip to the sea turn into a nightmare due to an unexpected storm. Like Ariadne and Bacchus’ sailors, remember that after a great storm, there is no more pleasant advantage than to be back in the harbour…