With Murmures, Fanny Vicens dedicates a double album to Mozart and Haydn, performed on the accordion. Following her recording of the Goldberg Variations for Paraty, she continues her exploration of the keyboard repertoire through an interpretation that is neither a mere transposition nor a surprising novelty, but a carefully constructed interpretive approach.

The project originated in 2023, during a period of returning to musical roots. Mozart and Haydn emerge as two composers linked to Fanny Vicens' training, but also as two figures united by Vienna, by their friendship, and by a shared attention to form, discourse, and the inner movement of music. The program juxtaposes their works in a two-and-a-half-hour journey.

The accordion is considered a full-fledged interpretive instrument. Fanny Vicens draws on its unique resources — breath, sound continuity, articulation, and precision of sound layers — to present these Mozart and Haydn pieces in a new light, without altering their balance. Whispers thus shifts the question of the instrument's legitimacy towards that of musical interpretation itself.

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With You wanted to see Jacques Brel and we saw…, cellist Camille Seghers and pianist-arranger Alexis Thibaut de Maisières bring Jacques Brel's songs into the realm of chamber music. Thirteen iconic songs converse with major works from the classical repertoire, in arrangements that reveal the deep connections between song, musical theater, cabaret, and concert.

Born from a stage intuition, the project was built around a game of mirrors: recognizing Brel without the words being spoken, and hearing echoes of Ravel, Schubert, Offenbach, Chopin, Shostakovich, or Rimsky-Korsakov behind his melodies. Far from a mere scholarly nod, each juxtaposition opens up another listening space, where the song gains new depth and classical music rediscovers the direct impulse of the popular voice.

In this setup, the cello takes the place of the voice: it doesn't seek to imitate Brel, but rather to convey the vocal line differently, through timbre, inflection, tension, or restraint. The piano, for its part, becomes a place of transformation, allowing the songs to circulate between several musical worlds. Camille Seghers and Alexis Thibaut de Maisières thus offer a sensitive and profoundly musical interpretation of a repertoire that has become heritage

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With Augmented Tangos, Fleurs Noires continues over twenty years of research into contemporary tango, led by a Franco-Argentine all-female ensemble founded in 2003 by Veronica Votti, Luciana Jatuff, and Andrea Marsili. The ensemble has established itself between Paris and Buenos Aires with a unique approach to the genre, rooted in Argentine memory and open to contemporary compositions.  

Built around the compositions of Andrea Marsili, pianist, composer, doctor of musicology, and specialist in tango codes, the album explores the connections between traditional orchestra, electronics, instrumental timbres, and sound spatialization. The pieces combine the acoustic essence of tango with a pre-recorded virtual counterpart, creating a play of mirrors between instrumental gesture, contemporary writing, and sonic extension.  

The album also features several guests — Tomás Gubitsch, Mandy Lerouge, Aureliano Marin, and Vanesa García — who enrich its vocal, rhythmic, and sonic architecture. Through this project, Fleurs Noires asserts a vision of tango as a space for creation, transmission, and cross-cultural blending, where heritage is not preserved as a fixed form but transformed into living material.

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An absolute summit of the organ repertoire, Johann Sebastian Bach's work dedicated to the king instrument is a masterful synthesis of the major European schools. True to his roots while speaking a universal language, Bach extends and transcends the heritage of German, French and Italian masters, from Pachelbel to Buxtehude, from Nicolas de Grigny to Frescobaldi. Through toccatas, fugues, chorals and trio sonatas, he brings organ art to a level of achievement where formal rigor and poetic freedom never cease to dialogue.

This program brings together some of the most emblematic pages of this monumental corpus: the Toccata and Fugue in F major BWV 540, the Concerto in D minor BWV 596 after Vivaldi, several chorals from Orgelbüchlein and the major collections of Leipzig, the Sixth Trio Sonata BWV 530, and the Prelude and Fugue in B minor BWV 544. Bach deploys an exceptionally rich composition, combining contrapuntal science, the expressiveness of the Lutheran chorale, concerting inspiration and a keen sense of instrumental color. The organ becomes in turn orchestra, meditative voice, liturgical space and field for formal experimentation.

This interpretation was given to the Belgian organist Wim Winters, on the organ of the Reformed Church of the Shield in Strasbourg, built in 2007 by Dominique Thomas based on 18th century Thuringian instruments. Thanks to its balance between gravity and flexibility, this modern organ of historical inspiration is particularly suited to the world of Bach. Wim Winters deploys a reading that is both architectural and lively, highlighting the clarity of the lines, the rhythmic vitality and the spiritual depth of this music, in a constant dialogue between tradition and interpretative freedom.

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This interpretation brings together the Turicum Ensemble, directed by Luiz Alves da Silva and Mathias Weibel.

Composed for the Royal Chapel in Rio de Janeiro and sung on Christmas night 1811, the Matinas do Natal by Marcos Portugal occupy a unique place in the musical history of Portugal and Brazil. A major figure in Portuguese-Brazilian musical life, Portugal was both a composer of internationally successful operas and a prolific creator of sacred music. These Matins, written shortly after the establishment of the Portuguese court in Rio, bear witness to a sumptuous, festive and deeply theatrical liturgical art, designed to magnify the celebration of the mystery of the Nativity.

Built in three nocturnal events, each composed of responsoires, the Matinas do Natal are part of an elaborate concerto style, in which soloists, chorus and orchestra alternate. The instrumentation, remarkable for the absence of violins, highlights clarinets, bassoons, cellos and organ, creating a pastoral and luminous palette. Marcos Portugal deploys a constant invention, reconciling structural unity and expressive variety, in order to maintain the listener's attention during a ceremony that can last several hours. The music combines religious fervour, contemplative impulses, dance rhythms and passages of assumed humor, a reflection of a liturgical practice open to secular influences.

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This program is devoted to Viola da Gamba Suites and harpsichord pieces by François Couperin, brought together under the evocative title of Portrait of Iris. At the end of his life, withdrawn from the world and marked by illness, Couperin delivered music of singular intensity, where dance, character and meditation mingle in a deeply personal language. Long considered lost, Violin pieces with cipherical bass published in 1728 reveal a discreet tribute to the viola da gamba and, perhaps, a farewell to the golden age of the instrument.

The two Viola Suites, one built on traditional French dances, the other composed of characterful pieces, interact here with a vast choice of harpsichord pieces and with the Fourteenth Concert of Tastes combined. Couperin's writing, less idiomatic than that of Marin Marais but with remarkable expressive freedom, is distinguished by its sense of story, its singular decorations and an interior poetry that transcends form. Through these works, Couperin does not so much paint an instrument as an inner world, where music becomes language, gesture and imagination.

This sound portrait brings together Emmanuelle Guigues and Sylvia Abramowicz on viola da gamba, Bruno Procopio on harpsichord and Rémi Cassaigne on theorbo and baroque guitar. Together, they breathe new life into this refined universe using historical instruments, creating a dialogue between tones and styles in a spirit of freedom and depth. This interpretation offers a sensitive journey through Couperin's art, where dance, gravity and reverie are balanced in a vision that is both intimate and theatrical.

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