Alongside their respective solo careers, Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie regularly meet to perform as a highly sought-after piano duo. Both born and raised in Montreal, they have formed a musical partnership that goes back to the 1980s, developing a musical intimacy present throughout their wide-ranging repertoire. Their complicity has been strengthened over decades of playing concerts and recording together. This, their ninth album for Chandos, continues their exploration of works by Debussy. The programme features transcriptions by Ravel, Dutilleux, Woollett, Durand, Roques, and the composer of some of his best-known orchestral works (Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Nocturnes) and solo piano pieces (Clair de lune, La Soirée dans Grenade, La plus que lente, Rêverie). These sit alongside Lindaraja and en blanc et noir, original compositions for two pianos. Mercier and Lortie alternate the first- and second-player responsibilities in this mixture of works for two pianos and piano duet.
Igor Stravinsky is renowned for his legacy of glittering fairy tales in treasured favourites such as Petrushka and The Firebird. Another favourite is the ballet Pulcinella, a lovable melange of Baroque theatricality, heard here in it's concert suite form. The other works in this programme are surprisingly less known: the luminous and symphonic Song of the Nightingale, and The Fairy's Kiss based on Tchaikovsky's music, are both derived from stories by Hans Christian Andersen. An astonishing rarity, The Faun and the Shepherdess is an ancient Greek tale that was Stravinsky's romantically sensual gift to his young bride.
Following the critical and public success of Mahler's Symphony No. 9, Philipp von Steinaecker and the Mahler Academy Orchestra continue their recording of Mahler's symphonies on period instruments with the Fifth Symphony. For this recording, the new Breitkopf & Hartel Urtext edition was used, which includes the composer's numerous corrections. The Mahler Academy Orchestra is part of the Gustav Mahler Academy in Bolzano, founded by Claudio Abbado. It brings together young professional musicians and experienced instrumentalists from Europe's leading orchestras. Under the artistic direction of Philipp von Steinaecker and with an ensemble of instruments carefully replicating that of the Vienna Philharmonic around 1900, they return to the roots of Mahler-era performance practice and shed new light on these masterpieces. The Gustav Mahler Academy's originalklang project is a co-production of the Busoni-Mahler Foundation in Bolzano and the Euregio Kulturzentrum Gustav Mahler Toblach Foundation. It is held under the patronage of Marina Mahler, the composer and Alma Mahler's granddaughter, for whom the famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony was written after her meeting with Gustav in 1901.
Having made numerous recordings for BIS both as a clarinettist and as a conductor, Michael Collins had yet to offer us one of the masterpieces of the clarinet chamber repertoire: Johannes Brahms' Clarinet Quintet. Here he performs alongside the Escher Quartet, whose latest recording devoted to Janacek's quartets (BIS-2670) has earned critical acclaim. While the combination of clarinet and string quartet offers rich potential, Mozart's glorious clarinet quintet cast a long shadow that few composers dared to enter. Composed at the twilight of his career, Brahms's quintet is an elegiac masterpiece. It radiates aching nostalgia and a poignant sense of lost love, ultimately settling into a melancholy serenity. It's emotional directness is occasionally surprising yet never sacrifices subtlety. Max Reger modelled his own Clarinet Quintet on those by Mozart and Brahms. In this final composition before his untimely death, Reger pushes tonal limits without compromising structure. Seamlessly integrating the clarinet, he creates a beautifully balanced ensemble capable of both powerful outbursts and delicate textures. Straddling the dawn of the 20th century, Reger's remarkably rich work pays profound homage to the past.
Sibelius's Scaramouche, a ballet-pantomime commissioned in 1912 by his publishers, for a play by Poul Knudsen. His story line reflects the immense early twentieth-century interest in clowns and the commedia dell'arte, and in erotic desire, death, and the macabre, the same phenomena that produced Stravinsky's Petrouchka and Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Best known as a composer of piano music, Sibelius' younger contemporary Selim Palmgren also wrote music for the theatre, and his score for the fairy-tale play Tuhkimo ja kuninkaantytar (Tuhkimo and the Princess), dates from 1902-03. Larin- Kyosti's play recounts the adventures of a passionate youth, Tuhkimo, and combines features of the familiar Cinderella story with elements drawn from a wide range of folk tales and fables. Einar Englund studied composition with Palmgren (and later Aaron Copland). His soundtrack for Erik Blomberg's 1952 film Valkoinen peura (The White Reindeer) was particularly acclaimed and won best prize for original music in the Jussi Awards (the Finnish Oscars) in the year of it's release. Kalervo Tuukkanen taught for three years at Viipuri University before serving as Kapellmeister in Pori, on Finland's Baltic coast, in 1942- 44. He was one of the founding members of Suomen Saveltayat (the Finnish Composer's Association) and his composition Karhunpyynti (Bear Hunting) was awarded a silver medal in the 1948 Cultural Olympics in London (where Finland impressively topped the medal table). Joulusarja (Christmas Suite) is taken from his 1953 score for a production of the play Die Erzahlung des letzten Hirten (The Tale of the Last Shepherd) and it's five movements covers the key moments in the Christmas story.
A tireless adventurer and eclectic soul, Joseph Bologne de Saint-George is revisited here through a unique portrait that reveals the many facets of his talent. A true polymath born in Guadeloupe, he combined the arts and arms: an outstanding fencer, military adviser and violin virtuoso, he was even Marie Antoinette's teacher. Theotime Langlois de Swarte and the Orchestre de l'Opera Royal thus shine a light on this flamboyant personality who rose above the societal constraints of the 18th century.
Composed in 1680, Proserpine marks the reunion of Lully and Quinault after the scandal surrounding Isis (1677). Set in the splendour of Saint-Germain, the work offers a mythological mirror to the Dauphin's wedding. In it, Lully revolutionises his art: the orchestra becomes the driving force of the drama while the voices gain in expressive intensity. Under the baton of Christophe Rousset, Les Talens Lyriques revive this gem in which the fate of a captive queen and the splendour of restored peace unite in immortal harmony.
