This 3CD box unites three recitals that showcase the virtuosity, elegance and expressivity of mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux. Together, the programmes, recorded between 2003 and 2009, offer a survey of the repertoire that has figured most strongly in Genaux’s career – music from the 18th and early 19th centuries by Vivaldi, Handel, Hasse, Rossini and Donizetti. The spectacular recital of arias by Vivaldi, ‘Pyrotechnics’ was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2010.

An album of Mozart overtures, operatic and concert arias, from Die Zauberflote and Le Nozze di Figaro, amongst others. Soprano Karina Gauvin's recordings on ATMA and other labels and other other discs have won numerous prizes, including a Juno, a Felix and several Opus prizes and Grammy nominations. Bernard Labadie founded Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Quebec in 1984 and 1985 respectively, and continues to direct their regular seasons in Quebec City and Montreal and on tours worldwide.

The glorious voices of Karina Gauvin and Daniel Taylor and the refined playing of Les Violons du Roy will resound wonderfully thanks to this hybrid SACD–Surround/Stereo recording, bringing to life Bach’s little-known homage to Pergolesi: the motet “Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden” after the Italian composer’s famed Stabat Mater. As always with Bach the transcriber, he didn’t simply copy the original work wholesale, but carefully adapted it to its new German and Lutheran text (Psalm 51), enriching for example the basso-continuo and adding an independent viola part.

This is an ATMA Classique reissue of one of Les Violons du Roy’s seminal discs: the orchestra’s 2002 Dorian label recording of Mozart’s Requiem as revised and completed by Robert D. Levin. The recording won the JUNO® Award for Best Classical Album of the year in the Vocal or Choral Performance category. Founding conductor Bernard Labadie brought Les Violons du Roy and its the fifteen member core together in 1984. The ensemble specializes in the vast repertoire of music for chamber orchestra, performed on modern instruments but in a stylistic manner most appropriate to the work’s era.

Because authentic Baroque performance practices have become so widely accepted, the appearance of Bernard Labadie's excellent 2007 recording of George Frideric Handel's Water Music might not seem exceptional; the use of period instruments by his superb chamber ensemble, Les Violons du Roy, might not seem extraordinary to anyone who has heard recordings of eighteenth century music since the 1980s.

John Beard, Francesco Borosini, Annibale Fabri: these three men helped to revolutionized music in the 18th century. Their voices moved the greatest composers of the time to increasingly write for tenors, a move from the Castrati, which had dominated opera since 1600. Now, three centuries since this trio’s brilliance encouraged a surge of new repertoire for the vocal range, world renowned tenor Ian Bostridge celebrates their legacy with his stunning new release, Three Baroque Tenors.

ATMA Classique presents Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations in an arrangement for strings and continuo by Bernard Labadie, performed by Les Violons du Roy under Labadie’s baton. This recording was originally released on the Dorian label in 2000.

Les Violons du Roy. Chamber orchestra based in Quebec City, composed of 15 permanent musicians, founded in 1984 by principal conductor Bernard Labadie. Its name comes from that of the court orchestra of the Bourbon kings of France in the 17th and 18th centuries.