ORCHESTRE DES CHAMPS-ELYSEES

Philippe Herreweghe vindt dat naast de Mariavespers van Monteverdi, de cellosuites van Bach en de Diabelli Variaties van Beethoven, de symfonieën van Brahms het beste wat ooit is gecomponeerd. Herreweghe (die dit jaar 70 wordt) heeft zich enorm ingezet om werken van Bach tot begin twintigste eeuw uit te voeren op het instrumentarium die de componist tot zijn beschikking had. Dit heeft geleid tot werkelijk prachtige opnamen van topkwaliteit. Dit komt mede door de jarenlange samenwerking met Collegium Vocale Gent en Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, die respectievelijk hun vijftigste en vijfentwintigste jubileum vieren. Vanwege deze jubilea gaat Philippe Herreweghe alle symfonische werken van Brahms en de belangrijke koorwerken opnemen. Deze opname bevat een sprankelende vierde symfonie en prachtige vertolkingen van de Alt-Rhapsodie (met mezzosopraan Ann Hallenberg) en het Schiksalslied.



Brahms: Symphony No. 4, Alto Rhapsody & Schicksalslied


Brahms:
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53
Ann Hallenberg (mezzo)

Schicksalslied, Op. 54
Collegium Vocale Gent

Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, Philippe Herreweghe


"The four symphonies of Brahms form the kernel of our musical heritage, along with such works as the Monteverdi Vespers, the Bach Cello Suites and Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. To mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and the half-century (!) of Collegium Vocale Gent, we conceived the project of recording them in tandem with major choral works by this composer whose instrumental and vocal worlds are in essence inextricable. Johannes Brahms was at heart a singer. His entire oeuvre is underpinned by poetry and text, indeed even by rhetoric, following on in organic succession from ‘early’ music, notably the music of Schütz and Bach, of which he had a profound knowledge and whose tradition he was bent on continuing, to the horror of the modernists of his day. In the twentieth century, the world of the orchestra and that of the voice often followed different paths. But, contrary to this tendency, the trajectories of the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées and Collegium Vocale Gent have always been closely linked.

In the first place, this musical complementarity has enabled us to mount and record a considerable number of masterpieces of the repertoire with a deep-rooted shared aesthetic. But above all, thanks to an assiduous process of collaboration, the choir of Collegium Vocale has applied itself to the task of incorporating into its approach vertical, rhythmic precision and true, non-tempered intonation, two of the qualities to which the orchestra aspires, while the preponderance of text and vocal phrasing and articulation, indeed even pronunciation, has profoundly influenced the discourse of the orchestra, permeating to the very core of its instrumental technique. These are the bases of a task we dream of continuing for the next half-century." Philippe Herreweghe