Jacques Mercier Conducts French Masterworks

Françoise Pollet (soprano), Marie-Ange Todorovitch (Djamileh), Jean-Luc Maurette (Haroun), François Le Roux (Splendiano), Natalie Dessay (soprano) Orchestre National d'ile de France, Jacques Mercier

Three further collections celebrate orchestras and conductors performing their own national repertoire. The Orchestre national d’Île-de-France amassed an impressive discography of late 19th-century French music under former music director Jacques Mercier, and this collection of ten CDs brings together many little-known or undervalued works. Several discs of sacred vocal music include compositions by the likes of Gounod and Saint-Saëns (including his Requiem) and vocal soloists include Nathalie Dessay, Françoise Pollet, Véronique Gens and François Le Roux. Other discs explore the music of Roussel, Schmitt (his Sallambô suites, given a “splendid performance” – Gramophone) and Bruneau, and Bizet’s rarity Djamileh is performed complete. Rounding out the collection is Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien.

Price: $35.98