Pygmalion

Pygmalion stands out among historical performance ensembles because it originated as a combined choral-instrumental entity. That dual foundation has allowed the group to address choral literature from many eras while also investigating rarely staged operatic works.

Raphaël Pichon, active as singer, conductor, and violinist, created the ensemble in 2006 after studying at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. He subsequently appeared in countertenor roles under leading early-music directors such as Jordi Savall, Gustav Leonhardt, and Ton Koopman. The French designation Ensemble Pygmalion is also applied to the group.

Its chronological reach stretches from the elaborate entertainments mounted by the Medici family, whose productions helped shape the beginnings of opera and are documented on the 2017 release Stravaganza d'Amore, through Mendelssohn and Berlioz to Wagner in a survey devoted to treatments of the Rhine Maidens. Several recordings were issued on Alpha, the first of which arrived in 2008 and contained two of Bach’s Missae Breves. The move to Harmonia Mundi occurred in 2014 with a disc of Bach’s seldom-heard Köthener Trauermusik, BWV 244a. Programs have featured other little-known Bach pieces together with Mozart’s Mass in C minor, K. 427, and works linked to the Weber sisters Aloysia and Constanze, both of whom Mozart courted before marrying the latter. A 2015 album exploring the sisters was recorded with soprano Sabine Devieilhe.

Operatic activity has formed the core of the ensemble’s work, especially after it became associate ensemble at the Opéra Bordeaux. That affiliation produced a widely praised 2015 account of Rameau’s infrequently performed and textually problematic Dardanus.

In 2017 Pygmalion was appointed associate ensemble at the Opéra Comique in Paris for a three-year period. Annual releases have continued on Harmonia Mundi, including the thematic programs Enfers (2018) and Libertà! (2019). The album Johann Sebastian Bach: Motets appeared in 2020. Major recording prizes encompass the 2016 Gramophone Award, Opernwelt’s CD of the Month, and the Diapason d’Or de l’Année. A recording of Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244, was issued in 2022, followed the next year by Monteverdi’s Vespro della Beata Vergine.