Saint François D’Assise La Légende de Sainte Cécile

Description

In co-production with the Bru Zane Foundation, Naïve is pleased to release the first recording of Gounod's Saint Francis of Assisi, which we celebrate the bicentennial of in 2018. Under the direction of Laurence Equilbey, a top-notch cast finally brings this work, complemented by Liszt's The Legend of Saint Cecilia, the light that the musical world has been waiting for.
The rediscovery, in 2011, of the manuscript of Gounod's Saint Francis of Assisi (which we celebrate the bicentennial of in 2018), was an event that was extended by the world premiere interpretation given by Laurence Equilbey at the head of the Paris Chamber Orchestra and the Accentus choir – and by high-profile soloists: Stanislas de Barbeyrac and Florian Sempey.
A resident at the Villa Medici, after obtaining his Rome Prize, Charles Gounod became passionate about religious music.
Two years before his death, in 1891, he completed the writing of Saint Francis of Assisi. The score, lost, was recently found. Thanks to the partnership between the Bru Zane Foundation and Naïve, a new light is thus shed on unknown pages of French romantic music.
An apostle of a French romanticism, lyrical and seductive in his most famous operas (Faust for example), Gounod combines, in this sacred work, a Franciscan simplicity and that sonorous fullness, sometimes sensual, of which he had the secret. The beauty of the melodic lines and the sobriety of the discourse strike from the very first measures.
Saint Francis of Assisi is complemented by the brief hymn to Saint Cecilia, also by Gounod, and by its counterpart in Liszt's work: The Legend of Saint Cecilia, an intimate work, unjustly little known from the vast production of sacred music by the brilliant composer, and magnificently served by the clear and velvety timbre of mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes.