Michel Corboz: The Complete Erato Recordings (Box Set)

Swiss-born Michel Corboz was a conductor whose joy in singing inspired his exploration of choral works and opera. A fine baritone with a background in church music, he said that he even wanted “an orchestra that sings”. In 1964, opening up a new world of possibilities, producer Michel Garcin signed Corboz and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne – the group he had founded three years earlier – to the Erato label.

Over the ensuing years, Corboz (who died in 2021) built an extensive discography, expanding the audience for composers like Monteverdi – sparsely represented at the time – Carissimi, Lalande and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, while reinforcing the presence of such figures as Bach, Handel and Purcell. Intent above all on doing justice to the composer, he readily collaborated with both period specialists and the modern instruments of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Orchestra.

A substantial number of the recordings in this 74-disc set are receiving their first CD release and have been specially remastered in high definition. Encompassing the Renaissance and the Baroque, this is the first and larger of two boxes to be devoted to Corboz’s Erato discography; its counterpart will range from the Classical era to the 20th century.

CD 1: MONTEVERDI Missa a 4 voci da capella

CD 2: A. SCARLATTI Motets & Missa ad usum Capellae Pontificiae

CD 3-4: MONTEVERDI Vespro della Beata Vergine

CD 5-10: MONTEVERDI Melva Morale Spirituale and Sacred Works for St Mark's Basilica, Venice

CD 11-12: MONTEVERDI Orfeo

CD 13: LA CHANSON ET LA DANSE - Paris, vers 1540

CD 14: LA CHANSON DE LAUSANNE

CD 15: GOUDIMEL Mass "Le Bien que j'ay" 6 Psaumes

CD 16: DE LALANDE Profundis, Regina coeli

CD 17-18: IDOLCIFRUTTI — Venice before Monteverdi

CD 19-20: GABRIELI Sacrae Symphoniae

CD 21 : BACH Magnificat in D major, BWV 243 Cantata "Es wartet alles auf ditch", BWV 187

CD 22-23: BACH Mass in B minor, BWV 232

CD 24: CARISSIMI Historia di Jephte, 3 Motets

CD 25: CARISSI Historia di Ezechias, Tolle Sponsa, Messa a otto voci, Historia di Abraham et Isaac

CD 26-27: CHARPENTIER Messe pour les trepasses, Motet pour les trepasses Miserere des Jesuites

CD 28-29: BACH: Missae Breves, BWV 233-236 Sanctus, BWV 237-241 Christe eleison, BWV 242

CD 30 Chansons et Madrigaux de la Renaissance avec leur Double Orne par BASSANO