Montage # 111 – Bellissima!

As of July 26, 2013, this montage will no longer be available on Pod-O-Matic. It can be heard or downloaded from the Internet Archive at the following address / A compter du 26 juillet 2013, ce montage ne sera plus disponible en baladodiffusion Pod-O-Matic. Il peut être téléchargé ou entendu au site Internet Archive à l'adresse suivante:

http://archive.org/details/Pcast111



pcast111- Playlist

===================================================================== English Commentary – le commentaire français suit

Today's montage highlights beautiful music about beautiful things, and - yes - beaytiful ladies. Selections rtrtange from the popular, operatic, orchestral and ballet repertoires.

Let's begin with our orchestral selections: three overtures aboiut beautiful ladies. We begin with the nautical sounds of Mendelssohn's Melusine - an ode to a feminine spirit of fresh waters in sacred springs and rivers.

Offenbach's La Belle Hélène is, of course, based on the beauty of Greek epics Helen of Troy and

Suppé

's Galatea. who - like Gippeto's Pinocchio, is an inanimate object that comes to life.

Among the songs I retained, there's a Debussy setting of a Villon poem,  Belle - referring to Victor Hugo's Esmeralda - taken from the Plamondon/Cocciante musical of the late '90s, I Feel Pretty from West Side Story, and popular standards by Carole King and Billy Preston. From opera, the infamous jewel aria from Faust and the Act I duet between Rodolfo and Mimi from La Boheme.

To round out the montage, a suite (assembled by conductor Richartd Bonynge) of selections from the Tchaikovsky ballet Sleeping Beauty.

I think you will love this (beautiful) music too! 

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Commentaire français

Notre montage d’aujourd’hui se veut un homage à la beauté, et à un ensemble de belles demoiselles de la mythologie et de la scène.

Parmi les personnages de la mythologie, on compte Mélusine (Mendelssohn), Galathée (Suppé), Hélène de Troie (Offenbach) et Aurore (Tchaikovski).

De la scène: Marguerite (Gounod), Esméralda (Plamondon et Cocciante), Mimi (Puccini) et Maria (Sondheim et Bernstein).

Finalement, j’ai opté pour des chansons de Debussy, et des voix populaires de Carole King et Joe Cocker (dans un succès signé Billy Preston).

Notons que la suite de La belle au bois dormant de Tchaikovski est, comme la coutume le veut souvent, assemblée par le chef d’aujourd’hui, Richard Bonynge.

Bonne (et surtout belle) écoute.