Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Chœur de l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo & Kazuki Yamada – Camille Saint-Saëns: Déjanire (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:44:04 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bru Zane
‘It will be a strange score: people will either not like it at all, or will like it enormously’, prophesied Camille Saint-Saëns a few days before the premiere of Déjanire. The opera, first performed in Monte Carlo on 14 March 1911, is based on incidental music written in 1898 for the Béziers Arena. Fascinated by the subject, the composer soon wanted to give it a second, more ambitious life. He therefore conceived a mythological epic that inspired ‘powerfully evocative music’, according to Gabriel Fauré, who was struck by the impact of the choral writing. Yet the love drama that rends the heroine’s heart engenders wildly romantic duets and culminates in the public immolation of Hercules, set ablaze by the poisoned tunic offered to him by the fallen queen. This new Déjanire received high praise from the critics, who flocked to Monaco to see it. But the modernist path that French opera was taking at the time did not allow the work to survive the upheavals of the First World War. It would have been a shame to prolong this unjustified ostracism any longer.
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Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Kazuki Yamada – Strauss, Liszt, Korngold, Busoni, Schreker: Ballet Music (2014)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82MHz | Time – 01:05:30 minutes | 2,59 GB | Genre: Classical
Source: ISO SACD | © Pentatone Music B.V. | Front Cover, Booklet
Recorded: Victoria Hall in Geneva, Switzerland in July 2013
The second CD in Pentatone’s dance music series lets you savour the vibrant, famous compositions from the German speaking countries. Connected by the power of music, inspired by fin de siècle, this CD glorifies the influential ballet/theatre/opera music from the interwar period.
There are vigorous performances of famous works and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande is in top form. All of the music is familiar, yet there is always room for conductor Kazuki Yamada and the orchestra to approach it with verve, inviting listeners to remember what they enjoyed so much about it in the first place.
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Kazuki Yamada, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande – Russian Dances (2016)
DSF Stereo DSD64/2.82 MHz | Time – 01:10:44 minutes | 2,8 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Digital Bookelt, Front Cover | © Pentatone
In an ideal situation, football players perform their “dance” on a grass pitch — as once did the “white ballet” of Real Madrid, led by its soloists Pusks and Di Stfano. But surely not on the ballet stage! Definitely not. However, not only was Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 — 1975) passionate about music, he was also a great football fan. More specifically, a fan of his hometown club Zenit St. Petersburg. The Russian language has a more intense description for the concept of the “fan” — one is considered “bolejet” (literally = ill) for one’s team: one shares the fever. And as a fan of Zenit, Shostakovich had his fair share of downright hard times: “Being a supporter is at times more frustrating than pleasurable.” He was often a guest at the stadium: even when Leningrad was under siege from the German army, he attended lower-league matches whenever possible. In 1929, Shostakovich composed his first, three-act ballet to a scenic design by film director Alexander Ivanovsky. Entitled The Golden Age, it portrays an away-game of a Soviet football team in an unnamed western city at the time of an industrial exhibition. During the away-game of the Soviet team, plenty of bizarre events take place in the ideologically “false” world, which allow for the inclusion of numerous dance interludes and parodies
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Christopher Jacobson, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Kazuki Yamada – Saint-Saëns, Poulenc & Widor: Works for Organ (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:31 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
The monumental and colourful sounds of the organ and symphony orchestra blend together perfectly on this splendid recording of Saint-Saëns’s “Organ” Symphony, Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani and the Toccata from Charles-Marie Widor’s Organ Symphony No. 5. The majestic organ chords at the start of the final movement of Saint-Saëns’s symphony equal the sublime effect of Beethoven’s choral conclusion of his Ninth, and have made it an audience’s favourite straight from the moment of its 1886 premiere. Poulenc’s organ concerto shows the composer’s retrospective side, while simultaneously offering flashes of his stylistic playfulness. After Poulenc’s serene concerto, Widor’s Toccata offers a vibrant conclusion to this programme.
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Christopher Jacobson, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Kazuki Yamada – Saint-Saëns, Poulenc, Widor: Works for Organ (2019)
DSD256 (.dsf) 1 bit/11,29 MHz | Time – 65:29 minutes | 10,3 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/176,4 kHz | Time – 65:29 minutes | 1,89 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital booklet
The monumental and colourful sounds of the organ and symphony orchestra blend together perfectly on this splendid recording of Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Organ” Symphony, Francis Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani and the Toccata from Charles-Marie Widor’s Organ Symphony Number 5. The Geneva Victoria Hall organ is played by Christopher Jacobson, he works with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and conductor Kazuki Yamada. This new Pentatone release takes yet another step closer to audiophile nirvana, providing a natural concert-hall perspective that balances clarity and atmosphere while capturing the full power of organ and orchestra with stunning, floor-rumbling power.
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