Cherubini: Cantatas

Kölner Akademie;
Willens, Michael Alexander

CPO 777776

Beethoven considered him one of the greatest composers then living and he was undoubtedly the dominant personality and authority in early-nineteenth-century French musical life: Luigi Cherubini, born in Florence in 1760, enjoyed early success with his operas in Italy and won fame in France with his music dramas, eventually being made Surintendant de la musique du roi and redoubtable director of the Conservatoire. Like Meyerbeer, he specialized in opera. True, he wrote songs and cantatas too, but they were soon forgotten. We remember his French operas like Médée or maybe Le porteur d'eau, or his late Masses. The present CD, on the other hand, turns to largely unknown works in the form of four French cantatas and choral pieces, none of them in any way inferior to the better known repertoire. Whether inspired by Greek tradition and mythology or by the »revolutionary heroes« of his stage music for three choirs »La mort de Mirabeau«, Cherubini never fails to give the sorrow, rage and pain of his subjects a truly personal dimension.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

CPO

05-11-2013

761203777624

Fanfare: 'Want List' (2014)