« Cadmus et Hermione is Lully’s very first tragédie lyrique – and the last of his operas we’ve yet to record. I conducted it years ago at Ambronay, and I can’t wait to return to it. You might expect a composer’s tentative first attempt, but no: it’s a debut that’s already a masterpiece.
This is a heroic work, with a bold and triumphant Cadmus – a perfect reflection of Louis XIV’s propaganda machine. But Lully is so much more than that. His music has a power that speaks across centuries. Beyond the grandeur and spectacle, he crafts moments of real, heartbreaking intimacy.
What moves me most about Cadmus is its experimental spirit. It’s a vast choral fresco, filled with a multitude of characters – a challenge for any ensemble. But I love working in continuity, deepening the artistic journey with singers like Marie Lys and Philippe Estèphe. It’s about building a shared language over time.
I have vivid memories of Ludovic Lagarde’s staging– its fire, its dramatic urgency, those striking contrasts between shadowy recitative and bursts of choral and instrumental brilliance. This is early Lully: no accompagnato arias yet, everything hinges on text and declamation.
And yet, the dramatic intensity is already unmistakable. We’re also thrilled to be starting a new partnership with the Philharmonie de Paris and the CMBV with this project – a perfect beginning! »

– Christophe Rousset

Cupid’s Ground Bass captures love’s extremes, from radiant joy to deep lament, with enduring themes linking arias and instrumental works in the vivid soundworld of 17th-century Italy.

Messa dell’incoronazione in do maggiore K. 317

Per Mozart il 1778 fu un anno spartiacque, segnato dal tragico tour a Parigi in cui al fallimento lavorativo s’aggiunse la morte della madre. Il ritorno a Salisburgo, con la riammissione nel libro paga del cardinal Colloredo, sapeva di sconfitta. Ma prodigiosa fu la reazione artistica: in pochi mesi nacquero la Sinfonia Concertante K. 364, il Concerto per due pianoforti K. 365 e la Messa dell’Incoronazione, destinata non a un sovrano ma alla festa per un’immagine della Vergine venerata a Maria Plain, vicino Salisburgo. In questa pagina sacra del 1779 si avverte già l’attrazione fatale di Mozart per il teatro, da lì a poco suggellata dall’Idomeneo. E per chi ama vedere lo strano percorso di certe idee musicali, si ascolti il tema d’apertura dell’Agnus Dei, genitore diretto di “Dove sono i bei momenti”, una delle arie più belle delle future Nozze di Figaro.

AN ELIZABETHAN TRIBUTE TO NICK DRAKE

"Nick was strangely out of step with his time. If he had lived in the 17th century, at the Elizabethan court, alongside composers such as Dowland or William Byrd, he would have fit right in. Nick was elegant, honest, a lost romantic – and at the same time so cool. In short: the perfect Elizabethan." – Rick Kirby

Joel Frederiksen and his Ensemble Phoenix Munich explored this sentiment of a friend of English singer-songwriter Nick Drake, who died in 1974 at the age of only 26, and created the program “Requiem for a Pink Moon.” With their award-winning signature style and sound, the experts in Renaissance and early Baroque music give Drake's songs an “Elizabethan” sound with lute, theorbo, and viola da gamba. Songs by John Dowland and Thomas Campion fit seamlessly into the adaptations, as Drake's lyrics, like those of the Elizabethan poets, revolve around deeply felt, personal moments of human existence.

For the second of our winter series, we turn to the second half of the 17th century and that of Henry Purcell whose songs remained unsurpassed in Britain for over two hundred years. Spanning his short creative life, Purcell’s songs appeared repeatedly throughout his life. In between his Odes, the semi-operas and instrumental music lies a profusion of wonderfully intimate and occasionally explicit songs. Clearly written for his friends, the texts feature both Shakespeare and Dryden amongst others. In 1698, three years after his death, his songs were published complete in Orpheus Britannicus.