Like his previous Virgin Classics release (a program dedicated to Georges Bizet), Paavo Järvi devotes his new CD entirely to music by one French composer: Gabriel Fauré. Fauré’s serene and consoling Requiem is the centerpiece of the album, which also features three further classics, and the world-premiere recording of a neglected rarity, by the same composer.

Based on concerts presented in Spain and France countertenors Philippe Jaroussky and Max Emanuel Cencic have joined with William Christie and the Les Arts Florissants to produce this CD of duets written for countertenors.

Recorded on May 21, 2006, at Schwetzingen
Da gelo a gelo ("From one frost to the next") is an opera in 100 scenes (some lasting as little as 3') by Salvatore Sciarrino. The composer's Italian libretto is based on one year (1002-3) and 65 poems from the journal of Izumi Shikibu encompassing her affair with Prince Atsumishi.

With the New York Philharmonic on its best behavior, Pierre Boulez uncorks a reading of Petrushka that is vibrant, energetic, and full-voiced, with razor-sharp rhythm and ensemble. The solos, played by the likes of Julius Baker (flute) and Paul Jacobs (piano), have never been more effectively done. The recording, with the sizzling sonics typical of CBS's multitrack heyday, offers an X-ray of the score; the remastering is excellent. Pierre Boulez's interpretation of The Rite of Spring is perhaps more French than Russian, but it's impressive nonetheless.

After having made seven films on Glenn Gould, Bruno Monsaingeon signed a masterpiece with this new portrait of the famous Canadian pianist. Bruno Monsaingeon, the person in the world who undoubtedly knows Glenn Gould best started to look for footage that had never been seen before among the many rushes of his own films.

Philippe Jaroussky continues his rediscovery of long-forgotten arias for high male voice with this collection of music by Antonio Caldara, a contemporary of Bach, Handel and Vivaldi, who was the first composer to set many librettos by the great Metastasio and Zeno.

The Connection was a groundbreaking 1959 off-Broadway play from New York City’s Living Theater group, written by Jack Gelber, that cast jazz musicians as heroin addicts waiting for a score. Artists that passed through the play included pianist Freddie Redd (who composed the original score), alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, tenor saxophonist Tina Brooks, and pianist Cecil Taylor. The Connection was made into a 1961 movie directed by Shirley Clarke, who would go on to film the adaptation of Warren Miller’s controversial Harlem-set novel The Cool World.

Using new interviews and old news and other footage, this documentary tells the story of the epochal Lip watch factory strike and worker takeover of 1973-75, in Besancon. This is an important (and overshadowed) episode in recent French labor history and looms large in discussions of post-1968 labor developments, even though few studies or films have appeared thus far. The strike and worker takeover drew support from all over France and Europe, but was eventually broken by armed Government intervention and the imposition of a new management. Overall, this is an important film for anyone interested in labor issues and post-1968 radical culture.