Phantoms. French Symphonic Poems

Ghosts, hunts, curses and enchanted palaces: Phantoms gathers eight French orchestral works from 1854 to 1912 that all draw on the fantastic. The programme moves from Ernest Guiraud’s Chasse fantastique, with its four horns played as rustic hunting horns, to Florent Schmitt’s Le palais hanté, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe. Gounod’s overture to La Nonne sanglante is here too, with its unexpected bass clarinet. Guy Ropartz, Gaston Carraud and Charles Silver complete the line-up. Two of the pieces, by Augusta Holmès and Marie Jaëll, are world premiere recordings. Both composers were well known in their own lifetimes, and Holmès was the most frequently performed woman composer of her day. Pierre Dumoussaud, a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century French repertoire, leads the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine through a showcase of colour. Rare instruments, unusual combinations and single sustained notes build suspense and menace. Recorded in May 2025 at the Auditorium de l’Opéra National de Bordeaux, the album is a rare chance to hear this repertoire together. Its 77 minutes treat these works as a continuous revelation of the French taste for suggestion, ambiguity and the eloquence of timbre, not as a set of curiosities. Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine Pierre Dumoussaud, conductor