Ombres: Women Composers of La Belle Époque Classical BIS

Ombres: Women Composers of La Belle Époque

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BI 2546

Ombres: Women Composers of La Belle Époque

Label Catalogue Number:
BIS-2546

Running Time: 01:05:45

Release Date: January 2022
Originally recorded in 2021

Genre:
Classical

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About

Devised by Laetitia Grimaldi and Ammiel Bushakevitz, Ombres brings together songs by nine women composers whose lives span the years 1821–1964. Many of the songs were written during the so-called Belle Époque, at a time when women might be accepted as performers – especially in domestic settings – but struggled to be recognised as composers. And even in the cases when their music was heard – for instance in the fashionable salons of Paris – or published, it soon fell into oblivion. Several of the songs included here were discovered by Grimaldi and Bushakevitz in libraries and archives, having gone out of print long ago. With Ombres, the performers liberate the nine composers from their shadowy existence, and demonstrate the wide range of their music, from Cécile Chaminade’s bustling Villanelle to Pauline Viardot’s nocturnal Les étoiles or the ghostly Les lavandières by Augusta Holmès, about the Midnight Washerwomen from Celtic mythology.

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Reviews

**** Excellent Album

Jacques Bonnaure – Classica magazine (France) – September 2023

“…with her attractive, full-bodied voice, fine sense of contour in the vocal lines and beautiful French, Grimaldi reveals what’s there in songs that existed not necessarily for the theatre but for their own sake.”

David Patrick Stearns – Gramophone magazine – April 2022

Performance **** Recording *****

“… this delightful recital is a must for all French song-lovers.”

Natasha Loges – BBC Music magazine – April 2022

Artistic Quality 8 Sound Quality 8 Overall Impression 9

“… The prime pieces of this meritorious collection, which mainly brings something new and whets the appetite for more, are the contributions of Pauline Viardot and Cécile Chaminade…”

Ekkehard Plata – Klassik.heute.de – 22 February 2022

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