Het Gelders Orkest

Lisa Larsson, Het Gelders Orkest, Antonello Manacorda – Berlioz: La Captive (2014)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DST64 2.0 & 5.1 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 48:39 minutes | F/B Covers + PDF Booklet | 2,62 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | F/B Covers + PDF Booklet | 1,06 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/96 kHz | F/B Covers + PDF Booklet | 968 MB
Features Stereo and Multichannel Surround Sound | Challenge Classics # CC 72639

Swedish soprano Lisa Larsson is among the most versatile singers on the European scene, with a repertory stretching from the Baroque to contemporary music. This coherent and innovative program features two cantatas and a song composed by Berlioz between 1828 and 1830. One of the stars of today singing, Lisa Larsson finally approaches French romantic repertoire.

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Lisa Larsson, Het Gelders Orkest, Antonello Manacorda – Berlioz: La Captive (2014)
DSF Stereo DSD128/5.64 MHz | Time – 48:34 minutes | 3,85 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download – Source: nativeDSDmusic | Booklet, Front Cover |  © Challenge Records

Have you ever heard of Jean-Baptiste Guirod, Giullaume Ross-Despraux or Eugne Prvost? Apart from Prvost, perhaps, they have mostly been consigned to the depths of oblivion. But these were composers who won the coveted Prix de Rome, an award that had been instituted by Napoleon himself in 1803, in the period from 1827 to 1829. And in doing so, they whipped the prize right out from under the nose of Berlioz, who had competed for it just as often as they had. It might offer Berlioz some — posthumous — solace to know that he was in excellent company; Ravel, Debussy and Bizet were also to be denied the prize. The judging system for the prize, which offered little scope for groundbreaking composers, has come in for severe criticism over the years. In the words of Edgar Varse, the prize ‘produced so much insipid fruit that nowadays we can barely even remember their names’. It was Berlioz himself, in his highly readable and entertaining autobiography, who explained all about the prize’s requirements and what the prize itself involved. The winner received an allowance for five years, but this was on condition that he would spend the first two years at the Acadmie de France in Rome, use the third year for travelling through Germany and survive the remaining two years ‘doing what he could to promote himself and avoid dying from hunger’ in Paris.

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