Swiss-born Michel Corboz was a conductor whose joy in singing inspired his exploration of choral works and opera. A fine baritone with a background in church music, he said that he even wanted “an orchestra that sings”. In 1964, opening up a new world of possibilities, producer Michel Garcin signed Corboz and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne – the group he had founded three years earlier – to the Erato label. Over the ensuing years, Corboz (who died in 2021) built an extensive discography, expanding the audience for composers like Monteverdi – sparsely represented at the time – Carissimi, Lalande and Marc-Antoine Charpentier, while reinforcing the presence of such figures as Bach, Handel and Purcell. Intent above all on doing justice to the composer, he readily collaborated with both period specialists and the modern instruments of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Lisbon’s Gulbenkian Orchestra. A substantial number of the recordings in this 74-disc set are receiving their first CD release and have been specially remastered in high definition. Encompassing the Renaissance and the Baroque, this is the first and larger of two boxes to be devoted to Corboz’s Erato discography; its counterpart will range from the Classical era to the 20th century.
