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Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Hungarian National Choir & Gergely Madaras – Franck: Les Béatitudes (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:59:28 minutes | 1,97 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fuga Libera
César Franck considered Les Béatitudes, for soloists, choir and orchestra, to be his greatest work. It was perhaps Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion that prompted him to begin a work in 1869 that too would be dominated by the voice of Christ. Franck worked on Les Béatitudes for ten years and created an original and deeply personal renewal of the oratorio form in 19th-century France. This is no simple musical depiction of a subject taken from the Gospel: Franck, a firm believer in the precepts of the Beatitudes, was here inspired to write a bold and personal work, driven by the ideal of justice that its music unforgettable portrays.
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Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, Chœur de Chambre de Namur & Gergely Madaras – César Franck: Hulda (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:38:06 minutes | 2,91 GB | Genre: Classical, Opera
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Bru Zane
The injustices of history are made to be redressed. Here a cast of international singers, under the dynamic direction of Gergely Madaras, devotes itself with conviction to the task of reviving one of the forgotten glories of French Romantic opera. Hulda, completed in 1885, was never staged in César Franck’s lifetime. This gory medieval legend recounts the multiple acts of vengeance its heroine inflicts on the Aslak clan, which slaughtered her family, and on her unfaithful lover Eiolf. The ferocious performance of American soprano Jennifer Holloway in the title role is matched by the sinister presentiments of her French colleague Véronique Gens and the tender outbursts of Dutch soprano Judith van Wanroij. Although the imaginary Norwegian setting brings Wagner to mind, Franck continues the tradition of French grand-opéra while adopting the contemporary Verdian idiom. The intensity of the action is reflected in harmonic and instrumental experiments that place Franck in the forefront of the modernists of his time. The inventiveness of the ballet is matched only by the splendour of the choral writing. How could such a masterpiece have languished in oblivion for so long? Quite simply, because it was deliberately buried by Franck’s pupils, who preferred to keep for themselves the glory of personifying the French operatic revival.
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