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Michael Spyres & Sabine Devieilhe & Elsa Dreisig & Marc Minkowski – Mozart: Mitridate, rè di Ponto (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:31:06 minutes | 2,77 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Warner Classics
Mozart was just 14 years old when he composed Mitridate, re di Ponto for performance in Milan. An opera seria set in ancient times, it boasts a sequence of spectacular arias for its cast of strongly contrasting characters. At the centre of the action is Mitridate himself – the historical Mithridatus, King of Pontus, a ruler of Persian-Greek ancestry who was a formidable opponent of the Roman empire.
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Marc Minkowski – Mozart : Mass K.427 “Great” (Recons. H. Eder) [Live] (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 48:24 minutes | 891 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © PentaTone
Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre present a new recording of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, the iconic opening Kyrie of which is among the most cherished religious music ever written. Mozart performed parts of the Mass in 1783, but the score remained unfinished, making the use of a scholarly edition necessary for a complete performance. Despite its unfinished state, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor has gained popularity and now enjoys a place in the choral core repertory. For this recording, made in connection to live performances, Minkowski has chosen Helmut Eder’s 1985 edition for the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. He performs it in a chamber-like setting with his regular ensemble Les Musiciens du Louvre, a small ripieno choir and four outstanding soloists: Ana Maria Labin, Ambroisine Bré, Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Norman Patzke. Since its foundation in 1982, and under the baton of its founder and musical director Marc Minkowski, Les Musiciens du Louvre have developed into one of the world’s best period-instrument ensembles, with a vast discography. This recording marks their PENTATONE debut.
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Marc Mauillon, Myriam Rignol, Thibaut Roussel, Marouan Mankar-Bennis – Lambert: Leçons de Ténèbres (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:44:29 minutes | 1,73 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Best known as the composer of three hundred serious airs, Michel Lambert (1610-1696) wrote two full cycles of lessons, both transcribed in an unsigned and undated collection of manuscripts. The first cycle, recorded in its entirety here for the first time, was written in a cursive script, which reproduces as faithfully as possible the vocal ornamentation with all its rhythmic subtleties, but which also retains a few uncertainties when it comes to the placement of chords for the basso continuo. It demands that the musician undertake a detailed work of reconstruction and minute adjustments, alongside an intimate understanding of the soul of this music which inhabits the border separating the sacred from the profane. Under the reign of Louis XIV, Lambert’s Leçons de Ténèbres were associated with ceremonies where the court took part in public acts of worship. Contemporary accounts tell us that they were performed by three female singers during the Tenebrae, but Marc Mauillon and his three instrumentalists (viola da gamba, theorbo and positive organ) here offer us a version of male voice, taking into account that Lambert himself must have sung them – the score, while not handwritten, is rather more an aide-mémoire than a version ready to play – and he also sang his own airs de cour. He probably also provided the musical accompaniment – probably on theorbo – alongside viola and theorbo player Nicolas Hotman, from whom our performers have chosen a few instrumental pieces, which serve as preludes, postludes, meditations or respirations between Leçons, which at the time would have formed a part of three liturgical performances in the three days before Easter. While the experience on offer here is different from that which was originally intended for these pieces, it is still certainly worth a listen, not least for the meditative state into which it will plunge the listener.
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Marc Mauillon, Angélique Mauillon, Myriam Rignol – Je m’abandonne à vous (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:49:58 minutes | 1,83 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Henriette de Coligny, Comtesse de La Suze, was more than just a woman of letters admired in her time, even by the very demanding Boileau. It was as a free woman that she married for love; after the death of her husband, a second one was forced on her, but, still a free woman, she demanded to be ‘de-married’! Surrounded by expert musicians, Marc Mauillon shows us that her précieux poetic universe mixes tenderness with the most unexpected strokes of audacity, so much so that her verse inspired many composers of the Grand Siècle – and after!
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Marc Mauillon & Anne Le Bozec – Fauré et ses poètes (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:14:09 minutes | 1,23 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi
Singing French mélodie necessitates the singer to strike a difficult balance between a perfect diction making the text which has been put to music intelligible, as well as getting the right tone of expression, being careful it doesn’t descend into preciosity. Thanks to a certain melodic line, Marc Mauillon is both tenor and baritone: he thus counts an enormous repertoire from the baroque era all the way through to today’s music. This Fauré recital is a veritable delight thanks to all of these combined qualities, to which the French singer adds his clear and touching timbre.
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Marc Mauillon, Angélique Mauillon – Li Due Orfei (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:09 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Arcana
Florence, 1600: Giulio Caccini and Jacopo Peri, two virtuoso singers and rival composers. Striving to rediscover the expressive powers of ancient Greek tragedy, they revolutionized the art of singing and created a new style, which eventually would give birth to opera. In reaction to Renaissance polyphony, these monodies were intended to be sung with the simple accompaniment of a plucked instrument in order to express the full range of human passions. Peri and Caccini would often accompany themselves but they would also perform with certain family members. Thus brother and sister in this duo follow most naurally a tradition passed on by those great musicians.
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Marc Lewon, Paul Kieffer, Grace Newcombe – Two Lutes with Grace: Plectrum Lute Duos of the Late 15th Century (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:34 minutes | 1,07 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Naxos
The plectrum lute duo was one of the most popular ensembles for professional instrumentalists in late 15th-century Western Europe. This recording presents for the first time the bulk of a surviving repertoire that can arguably be considered for the lute duo, performed on two equal plectrum lutes or with a combination of lute and gittern – a smaller member of the lute family. The album, inspired by the Ferrarese virtuoso Pietrobono dal Chitarino (c. 1417–1497), acclaimed in his lifetime as ‘the foremost lutenist in the world’, includes the earliest printed lute duos by Francesco Spinacino and Joan Ambrosio Dalza and the two-voice instrumental works by Johannes Tinctoris. The often highly ornamented instrumental duos are mostly reworkings of songs, some of which are given here in a performance with the singer Grace Newcombe to provide the context for the lute arrangements that follow.
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Marc Lavoine – Je reviens à toi (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 37:12 minutes | 430 MB | Genre: Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music Division Virgin Music
Le crooner tendre des années 80 se met à l’heure de l’été 2005 avec ce huitième album à ajouter au calendrier perpétuel de sa carrière. Pas de remise en question ici, mais une suite logique et sans faille. Appréhendées avec les années 80 bien en tête, ces chansons se veulent certainement plus mâtures (guitares vintage, cordes enregistrées à Abbey Road) mais restent d’une légèreté qui finalement, sied bien au bonhomme. Comme à son habitude, Lavoine multiplie plus ou moins indirectement les références et démontre qu’il reste…
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Marc Johnson, Eliane Elias – Swept Away (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:30 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
Double-bassist Marc Johnson, pianist Eliane Elias, drummer Joey Baron and saxophonist Joe Lovano are a stellar quartet who have released their latest album, Swept Away. The music is sensuous, poetic and engaging. The album features compositions by Elias which range from the easy-flowing “B Is For Butterfly” to the romantic “Moments.” Johnson dazzles with his evocative “Midnight Blue”.
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Marc Johnson – Overpass (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 43:24 minutes | 695 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM
With Overpass, Marc Johnson makes a decisive and intriguing contribution to ECM’s solo bass tradition. Johnson’s experiments with the bass and its potential as a lead voice began during his tenure with the Bill Evans Trio, where his nightly solo feature on “Nardis”, Miles Davis’s tune, inspired him to new ideas. “Nardis” is revisited on this new studio album recorded in S~ao Paulo, Brazil, alongside Alex North’s “Love Theme from Spartacus” (another Evans Trio favourite), Eddie Harris’s “Freedom Jazz Dance” and five Johnson originals including “Samurai Fly”, a recasting of “Samurai Hee-Haw”, which Marc previously recorded for ECM with his Bass Desires band and with the John Abercrombie Trio.
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Marc Hervieux – Nos chansons (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:53 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: French Folk, Chanson, Vocal Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Zone 3
L’album Nos Chansons est particulièrement symbolique pour son interprète Marc Hervieux. Il témoigne en quelque sorte de ses précieuses rencontres avec le public réalisées au fil de ses 25 années de métier. «Que ce soit après un spectacle, en rencontrant le public dans le cadre de divers projets ou via les réseaux sociaux, les gens sont nombreux à me faire des demandes spéciales. À un point tel que j’ai décidé de rassembler une véritable collection de ces chansons, des plus connues aux plus inattendues », explique Marc Hervieux. Ainsi réunissant 18 demandes coups de cœur du public, Nos Chansons est une formidable virée musicale aux parfums multiples : mélange d’époques et de styles, de chansons pop et classiques, tantôt groovy, tantôt sentimentales.
Cet album est d’autant plus significatif pour Marc puisqu’il souligne plusieurs années de collaboration – et des centaines de concerts – avec son ami pianiste Claude Webster. «Nous n’avions jamais réalisé d’enregistrement ensemble, croyez-le ou non! Ce que j’aime le plus de mon métier, c’est de donner des concerts intimes piano-voix où il est possible de vivre une grande complicité autant avec mon pianiste qu’avec le public», souligne le ténor.
C’est avec cet esprit inclusif que l’album a été enregistré aux studios Piccolo à Montréal, devant un public composé d’une centaine de personnes. Marc avait envie de l’enregistrer comme s’il était en spectacle, en enchaînant les pièces sans coupure. Sa voix authentique, bien mise de l’avant, y est portée par les mélodies uniques de ces classiques, sans effet mécanique apporté ou ajout de programmation.
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Marc Hantai, Pierre Hantai – J.S. Bach: Sonates pour flûte et clavecin (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:14:42 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Mirare
The Hantaï brothers – Marc on traverso and Pierre on the harpsichord – give us here everything Bach “really” composed for flute and harpsichord, as some possible falsely attributed works are not featured here. Compared to the violin – which counts six sonatas and partitas for solo violin and six sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord – the transverse flute may look like the forgotten sibling in the Kantor’s works. But at the time the transverse flute was still a very recent instrument, that had just come (back) from France (where it was called the “German flute”) and Bach only started using it in his cantatas around 1721-1722, and therefore only had a very limited dedicated repertoire. These four sonatas are anything but a collection. Two are missing to reach the sacred number of six. Furthermore, they were composed over a period of twenty years. And while one may be tempted to confer them the balance and symmetry desired by the arranger – two sonatas with obbligato harpsichord (BWV1034 and 1035), two with basso continuo (1030 and 1032), two in minor, two in major, two in three movements, two in four, two in E, and two fifths ascending or descending from this central E, etc. –, all of it might be merely fortuitous; they are rather a “blended” family. However these works for flute have in common the fact of being clouded by great uncertainty – whether it is about their chronology, the date of composition, the intended recipient, their form, their main instrumentation, their creation… So all is left for the listener is to experience them, performed here on a flute made by Joannes Hyacinth Rottenburgh (first half of the 18th century) from Brussels, and a harpsichord after Mietke (Berlin) made in 1702.
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Marc Djokic – Solo Seven (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:15 minutes | 1,04 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ATMA Classique
For his debut album, Solo Seven, violinist Marc Djokic is proud to present a collection of pieces for solo violin by great Canadian composers. Most of the program selections are the result of his close collaboration with each of the composers. Djokic’s ever-evolving research into new Canadian violin repertoire is the inspiration behind this project. Works by Richard Mascall, Christos Hatzis, Matthias Maute, Kevin Lau, Ana Sokolovic, and Vincent Ho celebrate the violin as a solo instrument, and push the technical, musical, and polyphonic limits of the instrument. “Marc Djokic is a master of the violin: As a technician, searching and mastering difficult repertory; as an interpreter, understanding the expressive requirements of the music; and as a communicator, translating the music to the listener the way the composer intended. My respect and appreciation for Marc’s artistry grows by the day,” said composer Christos Hatzis. Winner of the 2017-2018 Prix Goyer and a Prix Opus, the former Canada Council Instrument Bank recipient is one of Canada’s most prolific violinists. Marc Djokic is currently Artist-In-Residence at CAMMAC.
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Marc Coppey, Lawrence Foster – Shostakovich – Cello Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:10 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © audite Musikproduktion
This live recording of the two Shostakovich cello concertos continues audite’s cooperation with Marc Coppey, who approaches both works with boundless energy and without any sentimentality.
Dmitri Shostakovich wrote two concertos for the cello, and both are dedicated to the most eminent Soviet cellist of his time: Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1959 he wrote his first cello concerto, whose musical language is almost classical but which also reveals an enormous panorama of moods, gestures and “stories”. Seven years later, Shostakovich composed his second concerto; it builds on the confessional intensity of the first concerto but seems gloomier in character and is infused with threnodic tones. In this concert recording, Coppey performs alongside the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Lawrence Foster in the new Katowice concert hall.
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Marc Copland – John: Piano Solo (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 47:05 minutes | 704 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © [Illusions]
Marc Copland’s long and close relationship with John Abercrombie gives him a unique insight into the body of compositional work that John penned over his long career. This new album is a deeply felt homage by the pianist in which he displays his wide scope of rich harmonic technique and crystalline sound.
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