This recording presents that unclassifiable composer Francis Poulenc at his most fervent, following the reawakening of his religious convictions after a visit to the sanctuary at Rocamadour, “a plac...
This recording presents that unclassifiable composer Francis Poulenc at his most fervent, following the reawakening of his religious convictions after a visit to the sanctuary at Rocamadour, “a place of extraordinary peace”.
The Litanies are here presented in the original version for organ and women’s choir from the BnF manuscript, while the Stabat mater is performed on period instruments by Les Siècles.
As an interlude Mathieu Romano has included a secular piece, O doulx regard, o parler gratieux, by the Renaissance composer Clément Janequin. The boundaries between earthly love and mystical love are thus abolished in favour of pure emotion.
Francis Poulenc Litanies à la Vierge noire
recorded at Théâtre Impérial de Compiègne, in October 2022
Ensemble Aedes
Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas, organ
Mathieu Romano, conductor
Clément Janequin O doulx regard, o parler gratieux
Francis Poulenc Stabat Mater
recorded at the Royaumont Abbey – Refectory, in February 2023
Ensemble Aedes
Les Siècles
Marianne Croux, soprano solo
Mathieu Romano, conductor
Les Noces (1919) / Bolero
World premiere recording of Stravinsky's Les Noces in a rare version of 1919 by Aedes and Les Siècles conducted by Mathieu Romano. The second part of this recording is devoted to Ravel’s Bolero, sp...
World premiere recording of Stravinsky’s Les Noces in a rare version of 1919 by Aedes and Les Siècles conducted by Mathieu Romano. The second part of this recording is devoted to Ravel’s Bolero, specially transcribed for choir and small ensemble by the composer Robin Melchior.
“This recording is the result of a project conceived by the choreographer Dominique Brun, director of the dance company Les Porteurs d’Ombre, who asked me to provide the music for a new programme, Nijinska / Voilà la femme, which was premiered at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris in March 2021. It comprises two major works, Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Ravel’s Bolero, both of which were originally choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska for the Ballets Russes.” Mathieu Romano
Aparte, 20 January 2023
Ne vesiolaïa… traditional russian folk song
IGOR STRAVINSKY (1882-1971) Les Noces 1919 version (completed by Theo Verbey) WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING PREMIÈRE PARTIE
Premier tableau (Chez la mariée) Deuxième tableau (Chez le marié)
Troisième tableau (Le départ de la mariée) DEUXIÈME PARTIE
Quatrième tableau (Le repas de noces)
MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Bolero arr. Robin Melchior
Ensemble Aedes
Les Siècles
Conductor Mathieu Romano
Lully - Cadmus et Hermione
Vincent Dumestre, conducting Le Poème Harmonique and Aedes, brilliantly resuscitates this seminal work, thus celebrating with dignity the three hundred and fifty years of the Académie royale de musi...
An ancient hero, a dragon, a young goddess: love and glory are at the heart of Lully’s first opera, first performed in front of Louis XIV. As in his previous works – divertissements, ballets de cour and comédies- ballets – Lully makes the voices and the orchestra sparkle, multiplying the pieces which stand out and that were appealing to the court. But with the help of the librettist Philippe Quinault, he introduced the dramatic force of French classical tragédie in an exclusively musical work: and here the audience was bewitched by the mythical love stories so sumptuously portrayed. The first tragic heroes, the first great love duets, the first tears from the audience: the tragédie-lyrique, this opera in the French manner, was born, and thanks to it, until his death in 1687, Lully would never cease to delight.
A Château de Versailles Spectacles recording, 2021
Choc de Classica
Ensemble Aedes Mathieu Romano, choir conductor
Le Poème Harmonique Vincent Dumestre, conductor
Thomas Dolié, Adèle Charvet, Eva Zaïcik, Lisandro Abadie, Nicholas Scott, Virgile Ancely, Guilhem Worms, Marine Lafdal-Franc, Enguerrand De Hys, Benoit-Joseph Meier, Kaëlig Boché, Brenda Poupard, Olivier Fichet, Agathe Boudet, Sorin Dumitrascu, Amandine Trenc
Haydn - Stabat Mater / Symphonies parisiennes n°84 & 86
Aedes and the musicians of Le Concert de la Loge, conducted by Julien Chauvin, perform Haydn's Stabat Mater, one of the best known composer's sacred works....
Le Concert de la Loge and Julien Chauvin continue the Haydn adventure with the Paris symphonies no.84 and no.86. The conductor and his period instruments orchestra complete the programme with the beautiful Stabat Mater, one of Haydn’s most performed ones during his lifetime. Composed in 1767 during the Sturm and Drang period, the Stabat Mater’s strikingly sober and plain expression (« Fac me vere tecum flere ») doesn’t exclude some outstanding passages, as in the « Sancta Mater, istud agas ».
Recorded by Little Tribeca at the Auditorium du Louvre (Paris) and at the Arsenal de Metz in October and November 2019.
Aparté, 2021
Julien Chauvin, violin and direction Le Concert de la Loge Ensemble Aedes (conducted by Mathieu Romano)
Florie Valiquette, soprano Adèle Charvet, alto Reinoud Van Mechelen, tenor Andreas Wolf, baryton
Faure Requiem
There are three ways in which our CD of French music, dedicated to the Fauré Requiem and recorded with Les Siècles under Mathieu Romano's direction, is singular...
There are three ways in which our CD of French music, dedicated to the Fauré Requiem and recorded with Les Siècles under Mathieu Romano’s direction, is singular. For this recording we have used Fauré’s original 1893 orchestration, on historic instruments, which is very rarely performed. We have paired it with that other vocal masterpiece, Francis Poulenc’s a cappella Figure Humaine.
The CD ends with Debussy’s Chansons de Charles d’Orléans, including an astonishing interpretation of Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain, performed in its original 1898 version.
Aparte, 2019 5 diapasons, 5 étoiles de Classica, ffff Télérama
Gabriel FAURÉ,Requiem (version originale sur instruments d’époque) Francis POULENC, Figure Humaine, sur des poèmes de Paul Eluard Claude DEBUSSY, Trois chansons de Charles d’Orléans
Les Siècles
Ensemble Aedes
Direction Mathieu Romano
Don César de Bazan - Massenet
Discover Jules Massenet's first full-length opera revealed by Les Frivolités Parisiennes and the Ensemble Aedes conducted by Mathieu Romano...
Don César de Bazan is an opéra-comique with a narrative of dashing Spanish chivalry and romance. Its plot revolves around deception and comedies of reversed identity, with a struggle between true nobility and wicked selfishness maintaining an animated momentum throughout. This was the young Jules Massenet’s first full-length opera and yet it is filled with the composer’s mature symphonic style, his gift for melody, feeling for the picturesque, and vivacity of rhythm. These distinctive qualities reveal an operatic feast whose time has at last arrived.
Naxos, 2020 5 diapasons, Choc de Classica
Laurent Naouri, baritone-bass Elsa Dreisig, soprano Marion Lebègue, mezzo Thomas Bettinger, tenor Christian Helmer, Christian Moungoungou, baritones Ensemble Aedes Les Frivolités Parisiennes Mathieu Romano, conductor
L’Ensemble Aedes traite les ensembles choraux avec le raffinement qu’on lui connaît et Mathieu Romano peut s’appuyer sur les immenses qualités de l’Orchestre des Frivolités Parisiennes. Classica
Une merveilleuse alchimie des timbres et une expressivité instrumentale d’une rare éloquence. Diapason
Brel et Barbara a cappella
Our a cappella Brel & Barbara CD gathers together a selection of songs by Jaques Brel and Barbara, specially arranged for the Ensemble Aedes...
Our a cappella Brel & Barbara CD gathers together a selection of songs by Jaques Brel and Barbara, specially arranged for the Ensemble Aedes. Mathieu Romano entrusted various composers with the task of adapting some of their greatest hits.
As well as paying tribute to two major figures of the French popular song tradition, this recording takes a new look at popular song through transposition, mix and a search for new textures. Originally conceived as a poetic programme for a cappella choir, Brel & Barbara is the fruit of thorough recomposition both by composer-arrangers who usually write “serious” music – Aurélien Dumont, Fabien Touchard – and by those more generally associated with popular music, such as Manuel Peskine, ex-King’s Singer Philip Lawson, and the composer Christophe Looten who have also contributed to this adventurous music project.
Evidence Classics, 2018
Barbara, Gauguin (arr. Aurélien Dumont) 5’24
Jacques BREL,Le Tango funèbre (arr. Manuel Peskine) 2’32
Jacques BREL, Les Fenêtres (arr. Vincent Manac’h) 3’20
Barbara, La Mort (arr. Manuel Peskine) 5’19
Jacques BREL, La Valse à mille temps (arr. Julien Joubert) 5’35
Barbara, Dis, quand reviendras-tu (arr. Manuel Peskine) 2’34
Jacques BREL, Voir un ami pleurer (arr. Philip Lawson) 5’22
Jacques BREL, L’Air de la bêtise (arr. Victor Jacob) 3’54
Jacques BREL, L’Amour est mort (arr. Fabien Touchard) 6’08
Barbara, Attendez que ma joie revienne (arr. Victor Jacob) 3’25
Barbara, Hop-là (arr. Julien Joubert) 4’08
Jacques BREL, Ne me quitte pas (arr. Christophe Looten) 4’45
Jacques BREL, Le Gaz (arr. Manuel Peskine) 2’55
Jacques BREL, Grand-Mère (arr. François Saint Yves) 4’08
Barbara, L’Aigle noir (arr. Philip Lawson) 4’49
Barbara, Septembre (arr. Vincent Manac’h) 4’49
Jacques BREL, La Quête (arr. Fabien Touchard) 4’14
Ensemble Aedes
Direction Mathieu Romano
De son récent disque sur Brel et Barbara à « Noces » de Stravinsky, l’ensemble dirigé par mathieu Romano cultive avec superbe l’art du grand écart. Le Figaro
Pour certains Brel intimistes comme « Voir un ami pleurer », le résultat est bluant d’émotion. Pour certains morceaux déchirants de Barbara comme « Attendez que ma joie revienne », le résultat est quasi-religieux. Toutelaculture
Ludus Verbalis Vol. 1
This recording – first in a series of four, with two devoted to secular and two to sacred music – will explore different aspects of a cappella choral music from the 20th and 21st centuries...
This recording – first in a series of four, with two devoted to secular and two to sacred music – will explore different aspects of a cappella choral music from the 20th and 21st centuries.
The focus of this musical panorama is on the place of Words and Poetry in musical composition and the way in which composers “play on words” to translate them into music. For this, alongside well-known repertoire pieces, there are works by composers still writing today, including a piece commissioned by the Ensemble Aedes from Philippe Hersant. In the same spirit, alongside poems by Shakespeare, Eichendorff and Eluard, listeners can make (or renew) the acquaintance of the poetry of Charles d’Orléans, Louisé Labé or Henry Felix.
Eloquentia, 2011 Diapason découverte
1-3 Claude DEBUSSY, Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans
4. Maurice OHANA, Tombeau de Louize Labé
5-8. Jaakko MÄNTYJÄRVI, Four Shakespeare songs
9-11. Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS, Three Shakespeare songs
12-15. Francis POULENC, Un soir de neige
16-18. Philippe HERSANT, Trois poèmes d’Eichendorff
19-21. Raymond SCHROYENS, Eichendorff-lieder 22-25. Raymond MURRAY SCHAFER, Ludus verbalis 26-34. Raymond MURRAY SCHAFER, Felix’s girls
Ensemble Aedes
Direction Mathieu Romano
Ludus Verbalis Vol. 2
With this second volume of secular music, the Ensemble Aedes pursues its exploration of 20th and 21st century a cappella choral music....
With this second volume of secular music, the Ensemble Aedes pursues its exploration of 20th and 21st century a cappella choral music. As with the first recording, we have chosen seven cycles where the musical composition is centred around the sound of the words and the scope they give for our imagination.
Eclecticism is once again the name of the game: along with Yeats, Rilke and Apollinaire, we hear the words of Shakespeare and Eluard. Moreover, for this recording, we have chosen to include anonymous texts bequeathed to us by a variety of peoples and traditions – medieval England or Moravian folklore – as well as a cycle where the author of the text is none other than the composer himself.
Eloquentia, 2012 Diapason d’or
1-8 Benjamin BRITTEN, Sacred and Profane
9-11 Philip LAWSON, A Yeats trilogy
12-16 Franck MARTIN, Songs of Ariel
17-20 Bohuslav MARTINU, Four Madrigals
21-23 Maurice RAVEL, Trois Chansons
24-30 Francis POULENC, Sept Chansons
31-36 Paul HINDEMITH, Six Chansons
Ludus Verbalis Vol. 3 & 4
The Ensemble Aedes' Ludus Verbalis is an eclectic panorama of a cappella choral masterpieces from this century and the last, focussing on sacred music....
From Francis Poulenc to Aurélien Dumont, via Benjamin Britten, Jonathan Harvey, Olivier Messiaen and Frank Martin, the Ensemble Aedes’ Ludus Verbalis is an eclectic panorama of a cappella choral masterpieces from this century and the last, focussing on sacred music.
An ambitious programme conducted by Mathieu Romano, which completes the four-volume collection dedicated to vocal music from the 20th and 21st centuries.
NoMad Music, 2015 5 diapasons
Volume 3 1-5. Francis POULENC, Messe en sol majeur
6-9. Francis POULENC, Quatre prières de Saint François d’Assise
10. Aurélien DUMONT, Surgissant à nouveau de la terre (2014 – Commande de l’Ensemble Aedes)
11-14. Francis POULENC, Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence
15. Francis POULENC, Salve Regina
Volume 4 1-7. Benjamin BRITTEN, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
8. Jonathan HARVEY, Plainsongs for Peace and Lights (2012 – Premier enregistrement)
9. György LIGETI, Lux Aeterna
10-14. Frank MARTIN, Messe
15. Olivier MESSIAEN, O sacrum convivium
Ensemble Aedes
Direction Mathieu Romano
Clairvaux - Instants limites
The composer Philippe Hersant wrote Instants limites using texts written by convicts at the Clairvaux high-security prison (formerly a Cistercian monastery)....
The composer Philippe Hersant wrote Instants limites using texts written by convicts at the Clairvaux high-security prison (formerly a Cistercian monastery).
Instants limites brings together works by Philippe Hersant as well as a collective composition project based on texts written by the convicts at Clairvaux high-security prison (formerly a Cistercian monastery).
Aeon Label, 2013 Diapason d’or
Philippe HERSANT, Instants limites (Clairvaux)
Wanderung (Goethe) pour basson et chœur de femmes (1998) Désert (Nietzsche) pour flûte alto et chœur d’hommes (2002) Nostalgia (d’après J.S. Bach) pour violon et chœur mixte (2008) Niggun pour basson (1993) Instants limites, pour chœur mixte et instruments ad libidum, sur des textes des détenus (2012)
In 1683, Michel-Richard de Lalande entered the Chapelle Royale as a sous-maître after receiving the support of Louis XIV in a formidable recruitment competition. Still only twenty-five years old, the young composer was swiftly to become established as the King’s favourite and accede to the most coveted posts at court in a career spanning almost forty years. Above all, Louis included him in the consultations for the construction of the new Chapelle Royale, adjacent to Versailles Palace. As the arches gradually rose skywards, Lalande composed and revised his motets, which give expression to the then-peerless grandeur of the realm, while at the same time testifying to the chapel’s incomparable acoustics. His works – settings of psalms, hymns, the Te Deum – record the atmosphere at court in the liturgy, in times of both trouble and rejoicing.
Following their earlier recording of Te Deum settings by Lully and Charpentier at the Chapelle Royale, Vincent Dumestre and Le Poème Harmonique have now returned to Versailles to tackle the music Lalande composed for that extraordinary place. Alongside the grands motets Deitatis majestatem and Ecce nunc benedicite, with their synthesis of royal pomp and the language of opera, they offer the deeply moving Miserere and the most grandiose Te Deum performed in the reign of Louis XIV, the Te Deum of the King himself.
Alpha Outhere, 2018
Michel-Renard DE LALANDE Deitatis majestatem
Ecce nunc benedicite
Te Deum
Vincent Dumestre conductor
Le Poème Harmonique
Ensemble Aedes (conductor Mathieu Romano)
Emmanuelle de Negri soprano
Dagmar Saskova soprano
Sean Clayton countertenor
Cyril Auvity. tenor
André Morsch bass
Daphnis et Chloé - Ravel
Ravel raised the French Impressionist orchestral style to a sort of apogee - in a sense it is the last great comédie-ballet in the history of French music....
The arrival of an orchestra like Les Siècles on the harmonia mundi label is entirely logical : ever since it was founded by François-Xavier Roth in 2003, its musicians (mostly belonging to the new generation) have succeeded in placing several centuries of musical creation in perspective by playing the works they tackle on precisely the instruments used at the time of their premiere – without the slightest concession. The result is quite simple dazzling : never, since it was first heard, has Daphnis et Chloé displayed such a shimmering sound revealing an infinity of details without ever losing sight of the subtle beauty of the most French of the great “Ballets Russes”.
“At this moment in the history of music, Ravel raised the French Impressionist orchestral style to a sort of apogee – in a sense it is the last great comédie-ballet in the history of French music.” François-Xavier Roth
Harmonia Mundi, 2017 This Recording has received numerous international awards, such as Gramophone Award 2018.
Maurice RAVEL Daphnis et Chloé
François-Xavier Roth conductor
Les Siècles
Ensemble Aedes
Marion Ralincourt transverse flute
La Clemenza di Tito - Mozart
The Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Alpha extend their series of recordings of the Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer...
The Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Alpha extend their series of recordings of the Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer. After Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which received excellent international reviews (including FFFF in Télérama), here now is La Clemenza di Tito.
Gilles Macassar wrote in Télérama late in 2014 of “divinatory conducting, a cast close to the ideal… The last opera Mozart composed, long undervalued, closes the chapter of the Baroque and looks into the future, blazing a new trail that looks forward to the nineteenth century.”
This outstanding interpretation is now available in this two-CD set, featuring a high-powered cast.
Alpha Classics, 2017
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART La Clemenza di Tito
Jérémie Rhorer conductor
Le Cercle de l’Harmonie
Ensemble Aedes
Kurt Streit Titus
Karina Gauvin Vitellia
Julie Fuchs Servilia
Kate Lindsey Sextus
Julie Boulianne Annius
Robert Gleadow Publius
Die Entführung aus dem Serail - Mozart
The Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Alpha extend their series of recordings of the Mozart operas conducted by Jérémie Rhorer....
The conductor Jérémie Rhorer is today regarded as one of the finest interpreters of the music of Mozart in general and his operas in particular. After conducting Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2015, he performed it again at a memorable concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris in September 2015 with his orchestra, Le Cercle de l’Harmonie. It is this exceptional event, captured in a live recording conveying all the dramatic intensity of the opera, that Alpha Classics present today.
“In Die Entführung, Mozart presents a completely unprecedented vision of the singspiel, with highly developed ensembles and musical continuity at a time when contemporary spectators were expecting the standard alternation between spoken and sung sections.”, says Jérémie Rhorer in the interview that accompanies the discs. That musical dramaturgy lies at the centre of this interpretationn which is served by an outstandingly homogeneous cast.
Alpha Outhere, 2016 ffff Télérama
Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Jérémie Rhorer conductor
Le Cercle de l’Harmonie
Ensemble Aedes
Jane Archibald Konstanze
Norman Reinhardt Belmonte
Mischa Schelomianski Osmin
David Portillo Pedrillo
Rachele Gilmore Blonde
Christoph Quest Pasha Selim
While - Aurélien Dumont
While is an album that leads us off to a very special musical universe, carrying us on the wings of some of contemporary music’s greatest musicians...
Crafted like a time slider, Aurélien Dumont’s music’s unexpected juxtapositions of musical elements from Japanese culture, from old music, and contemporary poetry. While is an album that leads us off to a very special musical universe, carrying us on the wings of some of contemporary music’s greatest musicians.
