Walter Braunfels’s music died twice: first, when the Nazis declared it “degenerate art”; and again when post-war Germany had little use for the various schools of tonal music. This was the period when arbiters of taste considered any form of romantic music – which meant practically the whole pre-war aesthetic – to be tainted. We now reach the tenth volume in Capriccio’s Braunfels Edition, which features one of his most popular operas. What makes Jeanne d’Arc such an uncommonly effective music drama is not only the frequently sumptuous, post-romantic musical language, but also the libretto, which was assembled by Braunfels himself. The central thread of Joan of Arc’s story is known well enough: her vision, her contribution to the liberation of Orléans and the coronation of the Dauphin, and her subsequent arrest, trial, and burning at the stake. Braunfels somehow managed to put together a libretto from the original 15th-century French and Latin documentation of Joan of Arc’s trial, a snippet from George Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan, and his own writing, which together make this story and its characters – in many ways so far removed from a modern audience’s sensibilities and experience – relatable to listeners today.

Cast:
- Johanna: Juliane Banse
- Baudricourt: Martin Gantner
- Karl von Valois: Pavol Breslik
- Gilles de Rais: Johan Reuter
- Herzog von La Trémouille: Ruben Drole
- Erzbischof von Reims / Florent d’Illiers: Thomas E Bauer
- Cauchon / Bertrand de Poulengy: Michael Laurenz
- Jacobus von Arc: Tobias Kehrer
- Colin: Norbert Ernst
- Vicar-Inquisitor: Johannes Stermann
- Baudricourt’s Wife: Wiebke Lehmkuhl
- St Katharina: Siobhan Stagg
- St Margarethe: Sofiya Almazova
- St Michael: Bryan Hymel
- Herzog von Alençon: Johannes Dunz
- An English Captain: Domen Križaj

Live recording: Salzburg Festival, 2013