Honegger - Le Roi David | Mirare MIR318

Honegger - Le Roi David

£21.80

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Label: Mirare

Cat No: MIR318

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 12th May 2017

Contents

Artists

Christophe Balissat
Athéna Poullos
Lucie Chartin (soprano)
Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo-soprano)
Thomas Walker (tenor)
Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

Conductor

Daniel Reuss

Works

Honegger, Arthur

Le Roi David, H37

Artists

Christophe Balissat
Athéna Poullos
Lucie Chartin (soprano)
Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo-soprano)
Thomas Walker (tenor)
Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

Conductor

Daniel Reuss

About

With Le Roi David, written when he was less than 30 years-old, Honegger produced one of his first great masterpieces. The piece has a Stravinskian bite and primitivism, while also revealing Honegger flexing his compositional muscles, even creating an effective Sprechstimme melodrama scene for witch and orchestra. In 27 numbers overflowing with astonishing musical invention, the oratorio brilliantly recreates a distant biblical past in a resolutely modern hybrid of Middle Eastern-influenced music which can sound, to modern ears, like Miklós Rózsa’s much later film score to Ben-Hur. It enjoyed immediate and lasting popular success.

Reviews

Reuss’s performance is no-nonsense and direct, with excellent contributions from the Suisse Romande players and Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne. There’s suitably restrained narration from Christophe Balissat, with Athena Poullos a bit more histrionic in the other spoken role of the Prophetesse; Lucie Chartin, Marianne Beate Kielland and Thomas Walker make the most of their solo vocal numbers, too.  Andrew Clements
The Guardian 15 March 2017

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