Jacob Paix News
German musician, organist, composer and organ maker
- pipe organ
- Germany
- musician, organist, composer, organ builder
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2024-03-26
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2023-09-14 06:23:00
Tragédie lyrique given with great sympathy and style: Passion from Véronique Gens with Les Surprises, Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas at Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival
[…] Véronique Gens was joined by an instrumental ensemble of eleven, directed from the harpsichord and organ by Louis-Noel Bestion de Camboulas with a vocal ensemble of five.Divided into five acts, each with a theme, the programme explored Lully's music from Persée, Proserpine, Armide, Atys, Amadis, Alceste along with his dance music, plus Henry Desmarest's Circé and La Diane de Fontainebleau, André Cardinal Destouches' Les Elements, Pascal Collasse's Achille et Polyxène and Thétis et Pélée, Rebel's Le Ballet de la Paix and Charpentier's Médée. Each act flowed continuously in the manner of a tragédie lyrique, with Gens' solos focusing on a series of strong women.Act One, Malheuerese Mère, began with the overture to Lully's Persée, the band small but strong in sound and making the music vividly involving. Then a fluidly expressive account of the elegant passacaille from Desmarest's Circé, with the sequence closing with music from Lully's Proserpine with Cérès lamenting her fate as unhappy mother in music […]
2019-11-14 18:35:00
A Baroque Christmas Harmonia Mundi - Charpentier Pastorale de Noël
[…] the ensembles suggests rapture, and the restrained power of the soloist in "Ecoutez-moi, peuple fidele" suggests emotional authority. Charpentier's instrumental writing is equally meticulous, marking the "contrast between the tenuousness of the recitative and the plenitude of the chorus, and above all of the device of silence". The instrumental interlude that is the "Simphonie de la Nuit" marks in many ways the spiritual core of the first of the two parts of this Pastorale. A sublime "Paix en terre" completes the first half : voices and instruments in glorious harmony. The second part of H.483 is a series of vignettes illustrating the Nativity scene. Particularly attractive is the section "Cette nuit d'une vierge aussis pure que belle", the countertenor line lambent and clear, haloed by female voices. All three second parts follow the same pattern but each section within is different. In version H.483a,"We encounter the naïve and folklike elements which […]
2019-10-15 11:54:00
Alphonse de Lamartine Le Vallon
JMW Turner : Mont Blanc, Val d'Aosta Alphonse de Lamartine Le Vallon, a poem I've loved since I was a kid. Today I pulled out my old school textbook, Nine French poets : H E Berthon 1961, with a dustcover I made myself from a calender of Swiss lakes and mountains. It's still intact, though the pages are well worn and yellowed, scribbled all over with notes in tiny handwriting (and many doodles). At school we learned to parse alexandrines, to analyse, and to translate as accurately and sensitively as possible. Do kids still study like that today? Certainly that book shaped me, instilling my love to this day for the Early Romantic. Read the poem in its entirety HERE. It's too perfect to translate. Fastforward a lifetime, and it resonates even more. A few favourite verses : Mon coeur, lassé […]
2019-09-15 08:18:24
Prom 74: Beethoven Night is Back - imaginative programming from Andrew Manze and NDR Radiophilharmonie, Hannover
Prom 74 - NDR Radiophilharmonie, Andrew Manze, Elizabeth WattsBBC Proms (Photo Chris Christodoulou / BBC) Handel Music for the Royal Fireworks, Beethoven Concert Aria, "Ah Perfido!", Bach (arr. Elgar) Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV537, Beethoven Fidelio, Overture and 'Abscheulicher!', Symphony No. 5; Elizabeth Watts (soprano), NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover/Andrew Manze; BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall Reviewed by Colin Clarke on 13 September 2019 Star rating: 4.0 (★★★★) Coupling Beethoven’s music with that of two of his great musical heroes, Handel and BachFriday the 13th (13 September 2019) brought a Proms tradition – Beethoven Night – back to life with a visit from the North German Radio (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) orchestra, Hannover under their Chief Conductor since 2014, Andrew Manze, with soprano Elizabeth Watts. Coupling Beethoven’s music with that of two of his great musical heroes, Handel and Bach, was effective and imaginative programming. […]
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