Herald AV Publications

HAVPCD267 – Virgo Gloriosa

	Disk Title	Virgo Gloriosa
		A stroll through baroque Europe Promenade à travers l’Europe baroque
	Soloists	Cyrille Dubois (Treble)
		Alain Buet (Baritone)
	Choir	La Maîtrise de Caen
	Conductor	Robert Weddle
	Location	Notre Dame de la Gloriette, Caen
	Date Recorded	June 1999 & July 2000
	Audio Tracks	20

This musical promenade through 17th- and 18th-century Europe aims simply to present a selection of popular and lesser-known pieces of an intimate character, with small ensembles of period instruments and a choir of men and boys, very much in the tradition of those to be found in Leipzig under Bach, in London under Purcell, or in Paris under Charpentier.

In 1789 Caen boasted two maîtrises (choir schools), but the Revolution abruptly brought about their closure. Almost exactly 200 years later, the new Maîtrise de Caen presented its first concert. A collaboration between the city of Caen and the Ministries of Culture and Education permitted the creation within the Regional Conservatoire, one of the largest in France, of specialized classes in a primary and secondary school in the city centre – the Classes Maîtrise et Danse. During the ten years of its existence, the Maîtrise de Caen has assumed an important place in the cultural life of the town, and has started to acquire a reputation nationally and internationally.