Charpentier
La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers
Ensemble Correspondances/Sébastien Daucé
Harmonia Mundi HMM902279

Back in the 1980s, Harmonia Mundi France established their credentials as a label for connoisseurs with pioneering recordings by the likes of Philippe Herreweghe and William Christie that set a new standard for the performance of French Baroque vocal music with specialist voices. Christie’s series of Charpentier was a revelation and almost made the composer a household name – well, for sophisticated music-loving households that is. By the time he recorded this lovely chamber opera in 1995 he had jumped ship to major label Erato and was peppering...