Capucelli

Gautier Capuçon and six young laureates from his Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, collectively known as Capucelli, pump high-octane life into their strikingly eclectic programme of transcriptions for cello ensemble. They flood the ear with a seemingly infinite range of string textures and timbres, periodically spiced with percussion sounds, as in the heart-on-sleeve theme from the 2019 League of Legends gaming world championship. Irresistible melodies from belle époque France—the “Flower Duet”, from Delibes’ Lakmé, exquisite among them—rub shoulders here with blistering interpretations of the main theme from Game of Thrones and “Muerte del Ángel” from Astor Piazzolla’s Suite del Ángel. French audacity, past and present, runs through The Forest, Capucelli’s captivating take on music from early-13th-century Paris and its new cathedral of Notre-Dame.