Jules Massenet

We'll also hear the flutist Donald Peck in his signature work, Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.

Former concertmaster, Steven Staryk, shines in Massenet, and cellist John Sharp takes on a thriller by Richard Strauss.

And the horn section, led by Dale Clevenger, presents Schumann's Konzertstück for four horns and orchestra.

All of that, plus music by Britten, is ahead on this week's CSO program.

The players behaved extremely well during rehearsals, and there was a great atmosphere, so there was never any need to impose discipline." Let's hear Stephen Staryk in a beloved section from the opera literature.

This is a 1966 RCA recording.

Former music director Jean Martinon leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the Meditation from Thaïs by Jules Massenet.

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The Parisian conductor turned his rehearsal space into a little laboratory where composers could try out their latest material.

The Tuesday morning sessions proved to be especially valuable to Jules Massenet as he developed the music you'll hear this hour.

What he thought would evolve into a symphony instead became the Orchestral Suite No. 2, Hungarian Scenes.

Stay with me, Michael Toulouse, for that and more.

Um, and I just was really struck how her personality was so, I don't know, like, free and interesting and kind, and I think all of those feelings and emotions really come through on, on this album as well, which is, um, you know, a celebration of the Belle Époque of French melodists.

So we have Massenet, Debussy, and Fauré, but we also have their protégés, including Chausson, Hahn.

We have Madeleine Dubois as well.

So this is just, like, a really interesting collection of, of this music and a lot of, um, songs that I'm sure people will not have heard before.

Um, her and her pianist, Florian Karoubi, have been working together for over 10 years, and that sense of trust between the two of them I think is so tangible.

Um, yeah, she, she's been singing actually a lot of Massenet recently.

She's done Werther first at Opéra Comique, so singing Charlotte in Werther at Opéra Comique, and most recently at Salzburg, at Salzburg Festival, and the reviews of that are, are very strong.

And actually, the Massenet on this album, one of the sort of last songs is Poème pastoral, which is so simple but is, is such a great example, especially of how Karoubi, uh, his piano playing, he bring such simple spread chords.

Farr and Kraus had sung, and on that evening Christine Daae had revealed her true self for the first time to the astonished and enthusiastic audience.

Gounod had conducted the funeral march of a marionette, Rayet his beautiful overture to Sigour, Sansin the danse macabre and a reverie orientale, Massenet an unpublished Hungarian march, Giraud his carnaval, Delibes the valse lente from Sylvia and the pizzicati from Coppelia.

Mademoiselle Kraus had sung the bolero in the Vespris Siciliani and Mademoiselle Denise Bloch the drinking song in Lucrezia Borgia.

But the real triumph was reserved for Christine Daae, who had begun by singing a few passages from Romeo and Juliet.

This was a live concert that Shirley Verrett gave in Amsterdam of various Verdi scenes in December 1971 and I do believe it was the only time, the only time that I know of at least, that she sang anything from Oberto.

I just wanted to share a review that I found from the New York Times in 1982 when Shirley Verrett sang two Massenet arias with the New York Philharmonic.

The review's by Bernard Holland and it's one of the most ecstatic reviews that I've ever seen and so perfectly sums up what was matchless in Shirley Verrett's artistic persona.

The style was grand and the voice equally so.