Les Kapsber’girls I

NOTE: All of the music on this program comes from the Ensemble Les Kapsber'girls directed by Albany Imbs. The recording is on Alpha Classics and is Alpha 761. 

Passionate about exploring the pre-baroque and baroque repertoire, this young ensemble was created in 2015 by the lutenist and artistic leader Albane Imbs. Les Kapsber'girls are looking for new ways of interpreting historical sources. Drawing their inspiration from diverse traditional repertoires, the four musicians are working on XVIIe and XVIIIe centuries music in a cross-disciplinary approach, building new bridges and playing with genres. Energy and vitality borrowed from « popular » music, colors drawn from modern music, the girls are willing to find novelty in ancestry. 

Their name? It is inspired by one of the most famous Italian composers of the 17th century: Hiéronymus Kapsberger (1580 – 1651). They honor him in their first CD recording Che fai tù (2020, Muso) which obtains several important awards such as Diapason d’Or (Fr.), ffff Télérama (Fr.), Jocker Découverte Crescendo Magazine (Be.), Recording of the Month MusicWebInternational (GB).

Their second album Vous avez dit Brunettes ? (2021, Alpha Classic) dedicated to Brunettes, 18th-century French songs inspired by popular music, was awarded by the specialized international press (Recording of the week by Gramophone, 5 Diapasons, 5 stars Classica Magazine, …) 

Les Kapsber'girls are also committed to bringing marginalized composers, forgotten forms, and rare repertoires back into the spotlight. In 2025, their album Vox Feminae (Alpha Classics) celebrates this approach: it pays tribute to six Italian female composers from the Seicento, figures of talent, courage, and singularity in a world where women had little voice. (Diapason d'Or, TTT Télérama, Editor's Choice, and Best Classical Albums of 2025 by Gramophone and ***** Limelight).

Hosted in research-creation residencies at prestigious venues - Académie Bach (Arques-la-Bataille), Cité de la Voix (Vézelay), Sinfonia en Périgord, Centres culturels de rencontre d'Ambronay, Ferme de Villefavard and Abbaye aux Dames in Saintes - the ensemble has been able to refine its musical identity over the course of its projects.

Their concerts are regularly acclaimed by the specialist press (OpéraCritiques, ResMusica, Classicagenda...) and have been heard on some of Europe's most renowned stages and festivals: London Festival of Baroque Music, Brighton Festival, Les Nuits de Septembre (Belgium), Fora do Lugar (Portugal), Festival Radio France, Opéra de Lyon, Festival de Sablé, Festival de la Chaise Dieu, Les Musicales de Normandie, Heinrich Schutz Music Festival (Germany), Les Riches Heures Musicales de la Rotonde, among others.

From The Baroque Muse: Here is a disc as cheerful as it is unpretentious, like its mischievous Jaquette, where a quartet of peaceful sheep (by Rolf Lislevand?) set the auditor. One is called “Ballard et Fils” in irreverent tribute to this august dynasty of King’s Printers for Music. But back to our sheep, and those brunettes. “You said brunettes?” 

Here again, our Kapsber’Girls have fun, since we count only one brunette on these four musicians, and that it is in fact a nod to a musical sub-genre designating very simple strophic songs, while remaining “serious airs” (and not “drinking”). Whether those who hoped for the subtle sophistication of a Gedron, Lambert or Le Camus pass their way: brunettes (or “brunettes” to respect the fluctuating spelling of time) are simple, very melodic, just strophic (and often even without chorus). Christophe Ballard compiled more than 500 in the three volumes of his Brunetes or small tender tunes (1703, 1704, 1711). Three volumes that show the success of these little nothings, easy to perform, which can be used to learn singing or an instrument or recreate the right society. Ballard arranges a sometimes ancient material dating back to the Renaissance, adds a continuous bass, inserts an additional voice to all this kind Arcadian sheepfold. Would we dare the parallel with the time of Isabelle d’Este and the letters, of Urbino, of Ferrara or Mantua, abandoning the Madridic complexity to rejoice in canzonette, frottole and stambotti? The aristocracy in search of authenticity and abandonment is reveled in these simple melodies, to a voice or homophonic, immediately joyful and heady...

It takes the elegance of an Argentine pout, and a zest of naivety to embark on this florilège of brunettes. It also takes the talent of storyteller, and that of colorist to avoid the great boredom of so many disarming lovers, Tircis, Margot and Suzon. The bet is skullly won by our Kapsber’Girls and their smiling grace. We taste the anonymous “On this charming shore” which gives way to the two sensual voices entangled with Alice Duport-Percier (top) & Axelle Verner (alon) accompanied by the poetic archiluth of Albane Ims, and the natural flexibility of the ornaments adds a touch of artifice to this love complaint. From Bousset rewards us with a beautiful pearly and round “Beautiful valley”, “Where did you go my beautiful” which begins after some bearing sheep, relaxes the tempo with a languorous beginning a capella before returning to a more jumping rhythm. Here again, the fusion of the stamps of the singers, the amiable harmony of the subject, the delicacy of the ironic and cunning nothing of the performers, the mastery of the line and the amenities (cast, ports of voice, accents, tremors, pinches, flattered, etc. Montéclair listed 18, so several quite similar) take the buy-in, disarm the criticism. Some tunes, however, denote a greater beauty of writing, such as our favorite, that “Les Rossignols, as soon as the day begins” by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: the Kapsber’Girls treat the textures and the accompaniment creating instrumental rituals (over viola and archiluth, pinched strings alone), expand the measurements for an atmosphere of nostalgia Same more serious and dark atmosphere for the noble “You who know so well” stylistically close to Lambert. Conversely, “In truth, severe Margoton, you take it on a strange tone” swollen and drolatic, with its percussions (or simple tapping on the crates of the instruments) constitutes a brief and gouillar interlude where we regret that a man’s voice does not assume the parts of a certain Simon, Berger well enterprising. “I tell you that I love you” has the touching uprightness of a lullyist ariette.

Instrumental works punctuate this Arcadia, providing a welcome breath, and camping this pastoral setting resolutely pastel and watercolor, without minery or sentimentalism: plaintive accents of the viola of Garance Boizot, superb confidences of the strings of Albane Imbs especially in the languish of L'endormy or the dreamy. The journey ends with the deaf rocks of Michel Lambert – decidedly a greater composer than this father-in-law of Lully – and a contrapuntical “with wine” by Rameau, less laughing than these predecessors but with bold chromatisms. This is a beautiful ballad, less rough or popular than the companies of the Witches or Musicians of Saint-Julien, softly nestled in a cultivated alcove of salons with tender and mocking accents in turn. Only a few Kapsber’Boys lack, which would bring more contrasts and – who knows – blood overflows. And since it is not air to drink, consume these brunettes without moderation. 

Viet-Linh Nguyen