Live Concert from Salzburg for free

René Fleming will sing several songs by Richard Strauss and a scene from Arabella. She will be accompanied by the Wiener Philharmoniker conducted by Christian Thielemann, who will then in the second part perform An Alpine Symphony.

The concert will be live broadcast on Medici.tv starting from 9 p.m. (CET), this coming Monday, August 8th. Here is your link.

From the famous Confiserie Fürst in Salzburg [where you can also find the "real" Mozartkugeln -- the blue ones!]

The program of songs includes Befreit, Winterliebe, Traum durch die Dämmerung, and Gesang der Apollopriesterin.

Poèmes pour Mi by Messiaen

Composed for a big soprano, this cycle of 9 songs must be one of the most beautiful pieces of contemporary music written for a voice. Messiaen dedicated it to his wife Claire Delbos (who he called Mi), and the music is a refined portrait of a woman combined with his own warmth and tenderness to her. The superposition of the soprano voice with the orchestral contemporary music is truly sensational.

Please do try and listen to the whole cycle [but more than once!] and I bet you'll get hooked up too. ;)

The most frequently cited recording of  Poèmes pour Mi is the one with Pierre Boulez including a phenomenal interpretation by Françoise Pollet [last big French soprano, if you ask me!].

Very recently one of my fave singers, Anne Schwanewilms, recorded it too, and in spite of some  French mispronunciation, a sheer beauty of her voice --leaning towards dramatic yet retaining its lyric juice--  is enough for me to make that recording a permanent entry to my iPod play-list.

Now, why do I talk about Poèmes pour Mi?

No broadcast of Giulio Cesare from Pleyel... New CD(s)

I am not a Cecilia Bartoli fan. Too much humming and winking is not my thing. Plus that morbid CD in which she included a detailed (>100 pg) notice about the tools which had been used to castrate young boys (I wonder who reads that in her/his spare time...) No thanks!

In any case  she will be the biggest star in the tonight's concert version of Giulio Cesare at Pleyel. This is the first of 3 concerts with a very starry cast: Bartoli, Scholl, Stutzmann, Jaroussky, Dumaux + Les Arts Florissants. Yours Truly called Pleyel to double check whether or not they planned any form of broadcasting (radio, video...) of any of the 3 concerts -- and the answer is NO! Instead, the concert will be recorded and released on CD, later this year.

The other CD you might be interested in is released by the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (TCE). Last May the Orchestre National de France, conducted by Seiji Ozawa,  accompanied Renée Fleming in the first ever performance of "Le Temps l'Horloge", songs composed by Henri Dutilleux (exclusively for la Renae).  Notice that this CD can be ordered ONLY from TCE (click on "Nouveau CD") - which is why I'm posting about it here.