With Airlines, supreme instrumentalist, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, takes the music of an Oscar-winning film composer, Alexandre Desplat, into new realms. The album is entirely devoted to world premiere recordings – of original concert works and of reimagined versions of Desplat’s film scores, including Oscar-winners The Shape of Water (2018) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Pahud is accompanied by the Orchestre National de France, conducted by Alexandre Desplat himself.

Georges Prêtre was one of the rare conductors to support the music of composer and music administrator Marcel Landowski, a composer who was long blacklisted from the French milieu due to his open opposition against the boulezian avant-garde. We bring you the only existing recording of his violin concerto and the fourth symphony, dedicated to Prêtre who premiered it. The work highlights the very personal voice of Landowski, continuator of Honegger but with its own inimitable style.

Women composers had great difficulty in making their voices heard and gaining recognition during their lifetimes. Even today, they are all too rarely heard in the concert hall or the opera house. That situation obviously cries out for a change in attitude, but then come the questions: all right, let’s programme women composers, but which ones, and which of their works? In this eight-CD set featuring several hundred performers, the Palazzetto Bru Zane offers its initial answer as far as nineteenth-century France is concerned. The selections range over chamber music, orchestral works, piano pieces and songs. They highlight twenty-one female creators, from already identified personalities like Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Pauline Viardot, Marie Jaëll and Mel Bonis to such completely unknown figures as Charlotte Sohy, Madeleine Jaeger, Marthe Grumbach, Jeanne Danglas, Hedwige Chrétien and Madeleine Lemariey. From now on, there will be no excuse for ignoring Romantic women composers.

Jordan catches particularly well the immediacy of expression of these delightful pieces; note the force and amplitude of the conclusions to ''Danse villageois'' and the ''Scherzo-Valse''. He does excellently, too, in what Cortot described as ''the truculent flavour, unbuttoned and cheeky exuberance'' of España, and in the ''Danse slave'' from Le roi malgre lui, a quite similar piece.

Deutsche Grammophon has announced the release of Julie Fuchs’ second album. The new album, set for release on Feb. 15, 2019, will be titled “Mademoiselle” and will feature of a collection of Bel canto arias personally chosen by the soprano. Enrique Mazzola conducts the Orchestre National d’ile de France. The soprano’s first album for the company was entitled “Yes!” and featured a collection of French works. She also released a Debussy album and an album with Poulenc’s complete songs for soprano.

The music of Ravel is especially close to Alexandre Tharaud’s heart. Now, in partnership with the Orchestre National de France and conductor Louis Langrée, he has recorded both the composer’s piano concertos, pairing them with Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain), Manuel de Falla’s sumptuous work for piano and orchestra. “Ravel’s Concerto in G major is fresh and Mozartian in its colours, while his Concerto for the Left Hand is haunted by dark shades and suppressed fears,” says Tharaud. Both concertos were premiered in 1932. “Characteristically for Ravel, they are simultaneously unique and alike.

Victor Julien-Laferrière, winner in 2017 of the first Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium dedicated to the cello, presents here two French works for cello and orchestra: Outscape by Pascal Dusapin: "The title itself carries the musical project (…) a word rich in meaning that indicates a variety of meanings from the most common to the most philosophical. “Outscape” is the way or opportunity to escape, to invent a path of one's own. I liked this word because it is basically like a summary of the history of my work."

Dukas's three mature orchestral compositions are gathered on this attractive disc. The earliest is the little-known symphony, obviously inspired by Franck's three-movement symphony written a decade earlier. Like Franck, Dukas creates a large-scale sonata-form first movement; a lyrical slow movement that incorporates lighter, scherzo-like elements; and a rushing finale that contains a grandiose contrasting melody. La Peri, a late work, is subtitled "Dance Poem." It is glisteningly orchestrated–yet remarkably restrained–clearly delineated, colorful music. The Sorcerer's Apprentice (composed in between the other two) is deservedly popular, a colorful, splendidly lucid tone poem. Slatkin leads brisk, strongly played performances.

French modern composer Henri. Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013), born in Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France, was active in the second half of the twentieth century. The work combines the styles of Ravel, Debussy and Albert Roussel, as well as the style of his own creation. In addition to being influenced by Impressionist music, he also used serialism and atonality to write.

Understandably, Poulenc's Gloria and Stabat Mater have almost invariably been coupled together on LPs and CDs. Similarly scored for solo soprano, chorus, and orchestra, the two works are arguably the twin peaks of Poulenc's sacred music, that is, they are irresistibly melodic, energetically rhythmic, directly emotional, conservatively harmonic, and fervently religious. That said, however, the difference in tone between the two works is as striking as their similarities. Where the Gloria is light, bright, and at times even funny, the Stabat Mater, as befits its subject matter, is dark, heavy, and always deeply sorrowful. In this pair of performances with Georges Prêtre leading the Orchestre National de France and the French Radio Choir from the '80s, both works are given the deluxe French treatment. Prêtre is as skilled at balancing his forces as he is at keeping the music moving, and, as importantly, he is as capable of expressing the Gloria's joyous wit as he is of articulating the Stabat Mater's profound suffering. But the real star of these performances is American soprano Barbara Hendricks whose clear, warm voice and excellent diction breath vibrant life into all Poulenc's glorious melodies.

This release captures a performance of the Verdi opera Don Carlo recorded at the Theatre Antique d'Orange in Orange, France on July 13, 1984. The cast of the performance includes Montserrat Caballé, Giacamo Aragall, Simon Estes, Grace Bumbry, and Renato Bruson.