Death of an important early music conductor, 77
mainThe French conductor Jean-Claude Malgoire has passed away.
An entrepreneurial oboist, he formed a baroque ensemble in the 1960s and recorded extensively. But he was never a narrow specialist and always looked for opportunities to engage with contemporary composers.
Jean-Claude Malgoire was younger but had still the aesthetic frame of the pioneers in the “early music” movement in the 50’s, people like Harnoncourt, Leonhardt, and some mostly forgotten wonderful musicians like Eduard Müller, August Wenzinger, and Eduard Melkus. It is very hard to improve on his recordings of Haendel’s Fireworks Music and of certain choral sacred music by Vivaldi. By comparison, today’s “early music” people are like fast food & cola light. (Personal opinion.)
R.I.P.
He was a very good oboist also, before he turned to conducting. His recording of baroque oboe works was one of the first oboe recordings I heard as a teenager.
Where did you find these video with awful synthetic voices?
Look at this one
https://www.qwant.com/?q=malgoire&t=videos&o=0:3600449c7646604a3d76f83e04b2b0b5