Jacques Offenbach et ses proches

Description

Few music lovers know that Jacques Offenbach, dubbed "the Mozart of the Champs Elysées" by Rossini, drew part of his musical inspiration from synagogue chants, learned in his childhood from his father Isaac Offenbach, a musician, composer, and cantor of the synagogue in Cologne, Germany. Upon his arrival in Paris in 1833, and throughout his career, Jacques Offenbach collaborated with other composers of Jewish origin who, like him, effortlessly transitioned from the synagogue stage to the opera scene, from light music to synagogue chants, thus abolishing the boundaries between genres in the splendor of 19th-century Paris. Released on the occasion of the bicentennial of Jacques Offenbach's birth, this record introduces us to previously unpublished works of Hebrew music by Isaac and Jacques Offenbach, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Jules Erlanger, Emile Jonas, and Fromental Halévy, the author of Psalm 130 Mimaamakim [De profundis] commissioned by Louis XVIII in 1820 from the Consistory of the Seine, in commemoration of the death of the Duke of Berry. An exceptional recording, accompanied by a documented 32-page booklet, performed by the vocal ensemble La Truite Lyrique and Les Polyphonies Hébraïques de Strasbourg under the direction of Hector Sabo.