A welcome return of Carolyn Sampson and Ex Cathedra to Hyperion, performing the rich, fulsome music of the French Baroque. Their recording of love songs from Rameau’s operas (Hyperion CDA67447) was hugely acclaimed for Sampson’s stylish, fluid, seductive performances, and ten years later her artistry is even more dazzling.

This album is of particular interest as rather than concentrating on one composer it showcases the works written for the premiere soprano of the day, Marie Fel. Voltaire called her his ‘adorable nightingale’. For d’Aquin, she was an enchanted being. Marie Fel was the soprano who held an entire generation spellbound at the Paris Opéra and at Louis XV’s court during one of the most glorious periods of French music. With a voice described as ‘pure, charming, silvery’ (La Borde), ‘touching and sublime’ (Grimm) and ‘always lovely, always seductive’ (d’Aquin), she inspired some of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s finest music and introduced a whole new level of virtuosity and expression into the French singing tradition. Her long, triumphant career is traced through this fascinating recording.

Although the style of painting — and, arguably, the whole Enlightenment project of which it is very much a symbol as well as a product — is currently out of favour, there are few better exponents of Rococo portraiture than Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704–1788). His portraits of the great and the good of eighteenth-century French society include Louis XV, Voltaire, Rousseau, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson (better remembered as Madame de Pompadour), the mathematician, physicist and translator Émilie de Breteuil … the list goes on. And by no means least is this stunning portrait of the soprano Marie Fel which graces the cover of our 'French Baroque Diva' album, Carolyn Sampson’s homage to her great eighteenth-century predecessor.

The portrait is worked in La Tour's preferred medium of pastels, which lends his subjects a warmth and subtle softness. It radiates life and affection. Fel and La Tour were close (in fact lovers) as well as near contemporaries, who moved in the same social and professional circles. Fel was the darling of Enlightenment Paris — Voltaire called her his 'adorable nightingale' — a soprano loved by audiences at the Paris Opéra, the Concert Spirituel and Louis XV's court. This was one of the most glorious periods of French music and listening to this life-enhancing collection of arias brings home just what an important role Fel must have played in the musical life of her day. Though it's difficult to believe that even she could have bettered these gorgeous accounts from Carolyn Sampson, in this Gramophone Award-winning album.