French music specialist, Jean-Luc Tingaud, conducts a selection of Fauré’s secular choral and theatrical music – works that remain relatively little known. Setting a text by Victor Hugo, Les Djinns is heard in Fauré’s version for choir and orchestra, while his first venture into incidental music, Caligula, focuses largely on the lives of the women in the Roman court rather than the Emperor. Featuring both instrumental and vocal movements, Masques et bergamasques evokes the Arcadian allure of the French fête galante style – antique, luminous and nostalgic. Also included is the premiere recording of Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht’s inventive and sympathetic arrangement of Fauré’s largest piano work, the Thème et variations.

Conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud is a French music specialist and has recorded for Naxos works by Dukas (8573296), Bizet (8573344), D’Indy (8573522), Poulenc (8573739), Franck (8573955), Massenet (8574178) and the Franck and Chausson symphonies (8574536). With the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland Tingaud has also recorded Fauré’s Violin Concerto and other orchestral works on 8574587.

Jean-Luc Tingaud (b. 1969) studied with the French conductor Manuel Rosenthal. Notable opera engagements have included Pénélope and Le Roi malgré lui (Wexford Festival Opera), Roméo et Juliette (Arena di Verona), Faust (Macerata), The Turn of the Screw (Lille), Dialogues des Carmélites, La Bohème and Madama Butterfly (Pittsburgh), La Fille du régiment (Madrid), Pelléas et Mélisande (Prague National Theatre), Les Pêcheurs de perles (English National Opera), Spontini’s Fernand Cortez (Florence), L’Ange de Nisida (Donizetti Opera festival, Bergamo), Carmen (Tokyo) and Lakmé (Beijing).

The National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, previously the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, has been at the centre of Ireland’s cultural life since 1948 when the Raidió Eireann Symphony Orchestra, as it was originally called, was founded. In 2022 the orchestra transferred to the remit of the National Concert Hall, Ireland’s National Cultural Institution for music. The orchestra plays a central role in classical music in Ireland through year-long programmes of live performances, schools and educational projects, broadcasts, recordings and new commissions.