News of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s divorce makes no mention of a musical gem at their French estate.
It was world news, from the New York Times to the Dutch Financieele Dagblad: after years of protracted legal proceedings, business settlement of the divorce between ‘Brangelina’ aka Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had finally been settled. The case lasted so long that some of their six children had grown up in the meantime (and therefore had to be rearranged for).
In addition, a major point of contention was the division of their French estate and vineyard Miraval, of which they each own half. We will leave the juice on this for now, but what is sorely missing from the news coverage is that Miraval was and is an important place for music lovers. Indeed, the estate was owned by French pianist Jacques Loussier, who had built a recording studio there where legendary albums were recorded by equally legendary artists. Pink Floyd recorded The Wall there in 1979. Steve Winwood, The Cranberries, Sade, Chris Rea, Rammstein and Muse also found their way to the Provence-based music studio.
Faithful Alpha-Audio followers will know the excellent acoustics and recording quality of Jacques Loussier’s interpretation of J.S. Bach’s Kleine Fuga in G. Unfortunately, due to rights issues, we can no longer use it in livestreams. The ‘Little Fugue’ remains a reference track. In just over 2 minutes, it flawlessly shows how good an audio system is. ‘Put Jacques on’ is the non plus ultra in our review process from speakers, electronics to cables.
In 2022, Brad Pitt took the initiative to reopen Studio Miraval, together with young French producer and engineer Damien Quintard. Before that, the studio was completely redesigned and now has both analogue and digital recording facilities and can also serve for post-production of film soundtracks in Dolby Atmos. The artists who have since recorded at the new studio are certainly not minor ones: Sade, Nick Cave’s album Wild God and Travis Scott’s Utopia.
We assume that the studio has stayed out of the marital dispute, and we are happy about that because it means Miraval Studios will remain operational. At least the lushly designed website is attractive enough.