French music specialist, Jean-Luc Tingaud, conducts a selection of Fauré’s secular choral and theatrical music – works that remain relatively little known. Setting a text by Victor Hugo, Les Djinns is heard in Fauré’s version for choir and orchestra, while his first venture into incidental music, Caligula, focuses largely on the lives of the women in the Roman court rather than the Emperor.

Featuring both instrumental and vocal movements, Masques et bergamasques evokes the Arcadian allure of the French fête galante style – antique, luminous and nostalgic. Also included is the premiere recording of Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht’s inventive and sympathetic arrangement of Fauré’s largest piano work, the Thème et variations.