Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Saint-Saëns: Symphony No. 3 “avec orgue” & Piano Concerto No. 4 (Remastered Edition) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:20 minutes | 1,03 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Les Siècles is one of France’s finest early music ensembles, and its work in repertoire from the Baroque era to the Romantic period is fascinating for its precision, attention to historical details, and most of all, commitment to original instrumentation.

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye, Le tombeau de Couperin & Shéhérazade, ouverture de féerie (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 56:21 minutes | 493 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Recording Ravel’s music on period instruments is the kind of thing that might raise a smile… until you realise just how much the production of instruments has changed in less than a hundred years: it’s the return of catgut strings, skin drum heads, the French basson (and not the German system bassoon which is used across all the world’s orchestras today), shaper tips, trumpets and trombones of French manufacture. At the head of his orchestra Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth gives a new, orthodox, historically-informed version of Ma Mère l’oye (complete ballet), the Tombeau de Couperin and Shéhérazade, the long-neglected “ouverture de féérie” [Fairy Overture] which is pure Ravel. This return to the roots is clearly easier and more straightforwardly authentic for this period of music history, because, unlike earlier works, we possess recordings which date back to the 1920s, and even earlier, which can tell us about the style, the colours, the phrasing and the tempo.

But it isn’t enough just to have all this historical information to hand to make something interesting. What makes this record thrilling is that all the musicians in the Siècles are excellent, and François-Xavier Roth is a talented artist himself, who knows this music inside out. At which point, his complete recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird has already struck us with its quality. This rediscovery of Ravel resounds with clarity and finesse; it is a feast of well-defined timbres which cuts against the “beautiful sound” which prevails in orchestras around the world today.  –  François Hudry

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Ravel: La Valse – Mussorgsky: Les Tableaux d’une exposition (Orch. Ravel) (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 44:06 minutes | 407 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Toscanini regarded this orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition as a genuine treatise on instrumentation, on a par with that of Berlioz: scored for the same instrumental forces as La Valse, Ravel’s version quickly established itself ahead of all the many competing orchestrations of Mussorgsky’s piano suite! In François-Xavier Roth’s view, La Valse and the Pictures together represent the peak of the composer’s output for the symphony orchestra of his time – that is to say, as the musicians of Les Siècles reconstruct it for us today. What a joy to get back to the original colours of this music!

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Les Siècles and François-Xavier Roth – Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 – Gossec – Symphonie à dix-sept parties (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 54:29 minutes | 543 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

This release, part of harmonia mundi’s series celebrating the Beethoven year, pairs the composer’s iconic and much-loved Symphony No.5 with the far less well-known Symphony In 17 Parts by Francois-Joseph Gossec. The dramatic power and intensity of Beethoven stands in sharp contrast to to the cheerful and gallant music of Gossec. Les Siècles, led by François-Xavier Roth, apply their usual virtuosity and keen insight to both works in performances that are sure to delight.

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Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth – Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 – Méhul: Les Amazones: Overture (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 54:12 minutes | 505 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Continuing their exploration of Beethoven’s Symphonies, François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles give us an opportunity to rediscover the Eroica in all its modernity and power. Thanks to the magic of period timbres, Beethoven’s intended instrumental balances and effects are restored in revelatory fashion. The Overture to Méhul’s opera Les Amazones, written eight years later, will be a discovery for many listeners. This time it was a French composer who established a further milestone in the new aesthetic of Romanticism.

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Les Siècles, François-Xavier Roth – Debussy: Jeux, Nocturnes, Prélude à l’aprés midi d’un faune (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 50:52 minutes | 457 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

The originality of this recording (which presents works that are, in fact, rather common) comes from the orchestra Les Siècles playing on periodic instruments, in this case from the period in which Debussy wrote these masterpieces. This is particularly relevant for woodwinds and brass, whose mechanisms and sounds around 1900 were very different – more incisive perhaps, and undoubtedly more differentiated – which for music like Debussy’s offers a real plus in the orchestral balance. Moreover, the number of strings remains reasonable, this way the woodwind is never swallowed up as it often is with large international orchestras. The listener will be able to hear this music as Debussy heard it, or at least how he would have liked to have heard it because in his time orchestras and conductors did not always have a clear understanding of his style or the infinite colours on his palette.

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