Product Review

The ever-more comprehensive Sony Classical Masters series is pleased to announce ten new releases. Ranging from symphony cycles to solo piano music, these budget-priced box sets celebrate some of the leading musicians of recent times.

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.