Véronique Gens
Berlioz & Ravel
Véronique Gens, soprano
Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire
John Axelrod, conductor
Track listing
13 tracks · 65:47Hector Berlioz
- Herminie 22:11
- 1 Moderato 3:56
- 2 No. 1. Air. Adagio non troppo 5:06
- 3 No. 2. Air. Allegro assai agitato 5:10
- 4 No. 3. Air. Allegro impetuoso vivace 7:59
- Les Nuits d'été 27:58
- 5 No. 1: Villanelle 2:13
- 6 No. 2: Le Spectre de la rose 6:30
- 7 No. 3: Sur les lagunes 5:58
- 8 No. 4: L?Absence 4:35
- 9 No. 5: Au Cimetière 4:44
- 10 No. 6: L?Île inconnue 3:58
Maurice Ravel
- Shéhérazade 15:38
- 11 Asie 9:20
- 12 La flûte enchantée 2:54
- 13 L'Indifférent 3:24
About this recording
On this release famous soprano Véronique Gens performs Herminie and Les Nuits d'été by Hector Berlioz and Shéhérazade by Maurice Ravel with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under the baton of its music director John Axelrod.
Véronique Gens is internationally recognised as one of the greatest sopranos. She has made a big career with baroque repertoire and Mozart, but French repertoire, especially Berlioz and Ravel, are "as natural to her as the air that she breathes". Her French remains a model of immaculate diction, fluid and luminous.
Having a very special relationship to Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été and Herminie, Véronique Gens combines them on this release with Shéhérazade by Ravel, which conjures up a totally different world. On this CD Herminie is released the first time with Véronique Gens.
The charismatic conductor John Axelrod is music director of the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire since 2009, following the philosophy of being "open to the world" by extraordinarily diverse repertoire choices and innovative programming. Also internationally he is a sought after conductor both for concerts and opera productions.
Founded in 1971, the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, a "national" orchestra since 1996, is based in two cities, in Angers and Nantes. Today about 200 concerts attract yearly about 200,000 listeners, among them more than 10,000 subscribers.
Features
Booklet with liner notes in English and French and the lyrics in the original French and English
The artists
Véronique Gens
A prominent Baroque performer in recent years, soprano Véronique Gens has also become recognized as one of the word's finest Mozart singers.
Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire
In September 1971, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Pays de la Loire gave its first concerts in Nantes and Angers under the baton of Pierre Dervaux. Created on the initiative of Marcel Landowski, music director at the Ministry for the Arts, this orchestra was founded when the Nantes Opera Orchestra and the Popular Concerts Society Orchestra of Angers were combined to form a single ensemble. Since its foundation, the orchestra has thus been based in two cities, with half of its one hundred musicians in Angers and half in Nantes. Pierre Dervaux became the first music director and immediately gave it a "French colour". Marc Soustrot, who succeeded him from 1976 to 1994, continued this orientation. The Dutch conductor Hubert Soudant, music director from 1994 to 2004, took the orchestra in new directions, stressing Viennese repertoire and increasing its audience. The orchestra became "national" in 1996. The Brazilian conductor Isaac Karabtchevsky became the fourth music director in 2004, also founding an amateur chorus and emphasising late 19th- and early 20th-century repertoire.
John Axelrod
Conductor John Axelrod has established his profile as one of today's leading young conductors and is sought after by orchestras and opera houses throughout the world. He has been music director and chief conductor of the Luzerner Sinfonie Orchester and Theater since 2004/05 and principal conductor of Sinfonietta Cracovia since 2000. In 1997, he founded Orchestra X in Houston, Texas, an ensemble which gained international recognition for bringing new audiences to classical music through innovative programming and non-traditional formats. Guest conducting engagements have included the Oslo Philharmonic, the ORF Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony, and returns to the Orchestre de Paris, the Dresden Philharmonic and the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra.