Grieg: Peer Gynt

Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, whose 60th anniversary of his death we commemorate this year, was a major artistic and institutional figure in French music, although the relative scarcity of his recorded legacy has somewhat overshadowed his importance. He was notably entrusted with the reins of the country's first radio orchestra, the forerunner of the Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française, which we hear him conducting here in the two Peer Gynt suites. Fun fact: the Solveig's Song is performed here in a French adaptation by the soprano Claudy Mas-Michel.