Soprano Sandrine Piau's new project is dedicated to French baroque repertoire, offering a wide range of very beautiful arias by Rameau, Lully, Campra etc in a 100-year journey that mixes very famous music with little-know pieces, such as arias by Grétry or Sacchini > Sandrine Piau and Jérôme Correas, a former singer, founder and music director of Les Paladins, have worked together on a regular basis since their early careers, especially with William Christie. This new release is the 10th recital of Sandrine Piau on Naïve and 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of our collaboration.
“The French music of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has changed my life both literally and metaphorically: having trained as a harpist, I never imagined I might one day embark on a singing career. Nevertheless, in an incredibly fertile profusion of music, a series of encounters led me into this Baroque adventure where imagination and rigour call the tune, and permanently influenced my approach to all kinds of music.”
-- Sandrine Piau
“A hundred years of music: we offer our listeners a journey through the elegant language of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the very special world of the tragédie lyrique and the opéra-comique, but also the evolution of two artists eager to pool their sensibilities and their taste for discovery.”
-- Jérôme Correas
“There are some unexpected treasures unearthed here, but Piau's gifts are nowhere more effectively employed than on Lully's “Enfin, j'ai dissipé la crainte”. She animates the narrative with a measured emotional turbulence that stretches the boundaries of its formal arrangement, a tension between propriety and hysteria resolved only in the poise of the final bars.” The Independent, 11th May 2012 ***
“delivered with that rapturous, floating tone that makes her so special. Jérôme Correas and Les Paladins are fabulous in this repertory, and there are some lovely dances by Rameau woven in between the arias. Beautiful stuff that leaves you wanting more” The Guardian, 7th June 2012 ****
“A cross-section of arias is presented, from the florid and flamboyant to the consoling and caressing. Sandrine Piau exhibits no signs of difficulty in the ascending and descending of the vocal ladders...the vocal hurdles are fearlessly surmounted by the soprano, her bright but not piercing tone glittering through the fioritura.” International Record Review, June 2012
“she brings her familiar pellucid, subtly varied tone and scintillating coloratura technique, together with a mastery of French declamation that tends to elude non-native speakers...As ever, Piau makes reams of routine-looking coloratura dramatically specific rather than an excuse for upmarket showing off.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2012
“Piau negotiates with true French panache both the vocal and emotional highs and lows. Her voice is as sensual as Piaf, poetic as Greco, and with a chameleon-like sensitivity to the dramatic context. There's volatile playing, too, from Les Paladins” BBC Music Magazine, October 2012 *****
Gramophone Magazine