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Le Concert d'Astrée

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Le Concert d'Astrée is a French ensemble for instrumental and vocal Baroque music. The conductor and harpsichordist Emmanuelle Haïm founded it in 2000. Since 2004 the ensemble has been affiliated with the Opéra de Lille and has built an international reputation with the repertoire of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 2003 it was named best ensemble of the year at the Victoires de la musique classique, and in 2008 it won the Echo Deutscher Musikpreis in the category Alte Musik.

Music and breakthrough

The records show its breadth. There are opera recordings, such as Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, and Handel's Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. In addition Delirio, Combattimento, a Mass in C and a combination of Bach's Magnificat with Handel's Dixit Dominus have appeared. There is also Carestini: The Story of a Castrato, a record about a famous eighteenth-century castrato.

Influence

The ensemble plays Baroque music with a lively, dramatic accent, as befits opera. In this way it brings the work of Purcell, Monteverdi, Bach and Handel closer to a modern audience, and it belongs among the French groups that gave authentic performance practice a face of its own.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to an aria from Dido and Aeneas and notice the slowly descending bass line beneath the voice, and how the voice above it almost becomes a lament.

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists