Composer
CD · 1 disc
SACD · 1 disc
This project tells of European-American musical exchange at the beginning of the 20th century, the golden era of the transatlantic liners. Through concert tours and emigrations, the chosen composers toured and emigrated across the Atlantic, experiencing foreign impressions and recalling traditional themes. They were inspired by folk music, poetry to blues. I present these facets in original and arranged works for harp. “In the Atlantic crossings and the mutual influences of European and American composers, I felt my own family history with changing migration across the ocean.” (Anne-Sophie Bertrand)
CD · 6 discs
Here is all the chamber music composed by Gabriel Fauré between 1875 and 1924. These recordings, now viewed as benchmark versions, feature some of the finest artists on the French and international scene: violinist Daishin Kashimoto, cellist François Salque, violist Lise Berthaud, pianist Alexandre Tharaud, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, clarinettist Paul Meyer and the Quatuor Ébène. An exceptional project initiated by the pianist Éric Le Sage, whose 2019 recording of the thirteen Nocturnes completes the anthology.
CD · 10 discs
Amid the abundance of French miniatures, the Jeux d'enfants, Petite Suite, Dolly and Ma mère l'Oye cycles stand out in a class of their own: these four collections for 4 hands have become some of the most famous works by their respective composers. Arthur Ancelle and Ludmila Berlinskaia explore the melodic, harmonic and sonic richness of these works while revealing their depth and ingenuity. A veritable treasure chest that deserves to be opened by all listeners, young and old alike.
Gabriel Fauré, a master of song, piano, and chamber music, particularly appreciated the modulation-rich sound of the Érard grand piano. Its rich overtones and clear bass tones made it the ideal instrument for the French salon. This release presents not only Fauré's musical vision but also the sound world of the Érard grand piano, which played an important role in the musical scene at the time. Marc Coppey fully embraces the fluid rhetoric of Fauré's musical language. His interpretation deliberately eschews stylistically unfamiliar permanent espressivo and instead delves deep into the nuances and facets of Fauré's compositions. "Fauré authentique" thus presents not only musical brilliance but also an authentic journey through the French composer's complete works for cello and piano, embedded in the beautiful sound of the Érard grand piano.
CD · 4 discs
For his latest release on Sony Classical, pianist Lucas Debargue turns to one of the unsung treasuries of the piano repertoire: the works of Gabriel Fauré.
In a remarkable undertaking, Debargue has recorded every note of his compatriot’s piano music, all on a newly designed piano rarely heard on record until now. Throughout each recording, he retraced Fauré's musical path, from his earliest works to his final compositions. "Recording it," says the pianist, has "transformed my life both as a person and as a musician."
Debargue’s recording of Fauré’s complete piano works is a major recording event of the Fauré anniversary, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1924. A comprehensive set of sleeve notes notes includes the pianist’s own commentary on each piece, an analysis of Fauré’s approach to writing for the piano, and full details of the Paulello Opus 102 instrument he plays on the recordings.
The present album is a multifaceted homage to French cello music, and features heavyweights of French cello literature, recorded by one of today's leading cellists: from Camille Saint-Saëns' "The Swan," perhaps the most famous cello solo ever, to Léon Boëllmann's Variations symphoniques, combining playful wit with highly original form, contrasted by the sense of tragedy in Gabriel Fauré's Élégie. The two concertos by Saint-Saëns and Lalo represent weighty warhorses of the French cello repertoire which require not only technical mastery but, above all, musical penetration in order to highlight their subtleties. As an advocate of the ars gallica movement, Saint-Saëns included in his first cello concerto several allusions to the French baroque tradition, but also showed commitment to French clarity, turning his back on any bombast which was considered "Teutonic". Lalo's cello concerto, on the other hand, is highly expressive, energetic and very romantic, with the solo cello almost depicting the literary heroes of the time who populated the novels of Balzac, Hugo and Dumas père and fils.
REVIEWS:
A distinguished French cellist and a French orchestra present a fine programme which celebrates the important role of the cello in late 19th century France. This is a shrewd selection: the works by Saint-Saëns and Fauré are familiar, that by Lalo less so, and (outside the organ loft) the music of Léon Boëllmann remains obscure.I was very glad to discover Boëllmann’s concertante work, as I suspect will be many music lovers. Its thirteen minutes contain plenty of rewarding music, and no note-spinning. The title pays homage to Franck’s piece for piano and orchestra, and it sounds to me almost in the same class as that work.
Is there a finer cello concerto than Saint-Saëns’s A minor? Maybe, but few that are over in less than twenty minutes and offer such opportunities for a skilled cellist. The soloist has a showcase for all the instrument can offer, including becoming a chamber musician, or one who is primus inter pares. Coppey’s playing is impressive. In particular, there is a rapturous quality to his playing of the lyrical music in both of this work’s outer movements. The disc inevitably [also] offers Saint-Saëns’s The Swan. This perhaps best known of all cello works is played here in Paul Vidal’s arrangement for cello and chamber orchestra, and it casts the usual serene spell.Another arrangement for cello and orchestra, this time by the composer, is Fauré’s noble Élégie, originally a fragment of an abandoned cello and piano sonata. Coppey gives it a spontaneous-sounding account, at times almost improvisatory in feeling. The cellist’s tone and line are deployed in the service of a haunting interpretation, aided by touching flute and oboe contributions from the Strasbourg players under John Nelson, attentive collaborators throughout.Lalo is best known for a single work, his Symphonie espagnole. His Cello Concerto could well stand alongside it if it received more performances as good as this one. The stormy opening is stirring, and the lyrical passages silken[.]
-- MusicWeb International
We know Gabriel Fauré the composer well but little the pedagogue. This recording aims to highlight the influence of the composer in France and even in Europe when, in 1896, he became professor at the Paris conservatory taking over from Massenet. The program of this disc wishes to bring together one of the work of his last period and compositions by his illustrious students: Ravel, Lili Boulanger and Enescu.
CD · 16 discs
This collection stands as a valuable time capsule from which one comes away with a fuller understanding of Iturbi’s prominence in American wartime and postwar culture.
The complete RCA Victor Recordings by José Iturbi from 1933 to 1953, include his piano duo recordings with sister Amparo Iturbi as well as Amparo Iturbi’s solo recordings on 16 CDs, restored and remastered from the original lacquer discs and analogue tapes using high-resolution 24 bit/192 kHz mastering technology with about 95% of the recordings appearing on CD for the first time and 23 pieces previously unreleased. As well as a new, captivating essay by Grammy-nominated singer, pianist, and music anthropologist Michael Feinstein on the life and work of José Iturbi and a photo book with previously unseen photos and facsimiles from the Iturbi Archives in Hollywood.
There was a time when classical music was a natural part of Hollywood. From the moments with Jascha Heifetz in They Shall Have Music (1939) to the unrivaled performances of Oscar Levant and Isaac Stern in Humoresque (1946). In its Golden Era, Hollywood adorned itself with the Who's Who of classical music. Today, alongside icons such as Marylin Monroe and James Dean, the names of Leonard Bernstein, Maria Callas and Arturo Toscanini, as well as Rudolf Serkin, Joseph Szigeti, or José Iturbi were immortalized on the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame. This edition is a loving homage to Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, made possible through the generous support of the José Iturbi Foundation and the Hollywood Museum Board of Directors, who contributed to the lavish restoration of many previously lost unpublished recordings. The publication was also made possible by contributions of singer, pianist, and music archivist Michael Feinstein, the Ambassador for the Great American Songbook.
REVIEW:
During the 1940s and 1950s the “World’s Most Popular Classical Pianist” mantle fell comfortably upon José Iturbi (1895-1980). His recognition as a radio personality led to a movie career that yielded ten feature films between 1943 and 1951 where the pianist mostly starred as himself. Yet for all of Iturbi’s renown, he was hardly a poseur. He worked with Wanda Landowska in Paris, and gave Stravinsky’s Piano Rag Music its world premiere, as well as the first complete Carnegie Hall performance of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes.
He also conducted. When Eugene Ormandy assumed the Philadelphia Orchestra’s music directorship in 1936, his chief rival for the position was Iturbi, who wound up taking charge of the Rochester Philharmonic that same year. Once Hollywood beckoned, however, Iturbi became the brunt of intellectual critics, who basically wrote him off as a sell-out and an artistic lightweight.
Time, of course, brings perspective, and Sony/BMG’s lavishly produced 16-CD collection containing Iturbi’s complete RCA Victor recordings invites a fairly thorough examination of the musician behind the personality, plus an opportunity to reassess a largely forgotten body of recorded work. A 188-page coffee table book contains photos in abundance, with all original-jacket artwork represented, including the most politically incorrect cover art ever to grace Dvorák’s “New World” symphony. We get complete session and release discographies, an Iturbi filmography, plus a brilliant in-depth biographical essay by Michael Feinstein, who co-produced this collection with Robert Russ.
It’s a pity that the session discography is not cross-referenced to corresponding CD tracks, not to mention the absence of a discography by composer. This makes it difficult to navigate the contents with ease, especially in works that Iturbi recorded more than once. For example, it took some sleuthing on my part to discover that Discs 5 and 11 each contained the Liszt Liebestraum No. 3, Schumann Arabeske, Debussy Reverie, and Chopin Polonaise in A-flat Op. 53, and that the performances were not identical.
With few notable exceptions, Iturbi’s solo recordings mostly consist of short, encore-length pieces. He’s especially at home in Spanish music: Iturbi’s accentuation, phrasing, and timing throughout Falla’s Ritual Fire Dance define perfection, while he shapes Granados’ Spanish Dance No. 2 (“Oriental’) with sensitivity and tenderness. Classical selections also stand out for Iturbi’s bracing articulation. True, the outer movements of his Mozart K. 331 and 332 sonata recordings are overly facile and insufficiently inflected when measured alongside contemporaneous Mozartean rivals like Schnabel, Gieseking, Fischer, and Haskil. Yet the sheer evenness and poised symmetry of Iturbi’s finger-work easily explains why pianists like Julius Katchen and William Kapell praised his Mozart.
Iturbi also revels in the Haydn C major Theme and Variations’ sly wit. By contrast, introspection and sobriety characterize Iturbi’s measured unfolding of Beethoven’s Andante favori. Similar gravitas elevates Paderewski’s Minuet in G to near-masterpiece status. Iturbi’s virtuosic glitter befits his dashing Saint-Saëns Allegro appassionato more than in his glib Liszt Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este.
Iturbi’s Chopin hits and misses. His Mazurkas lack the ardency and rhythmic snap that distinguishes a Second Scherzo that gets better as it progresses. Also note the pianist’s dotting the duple rhythms in the A-flat Polonaise’s main theme that Horowitz, Rubinstein, and Lhevinne play straight on their rival RCA versions.
The later recordings reveal Iturbi’s pianism losing some of its erstwhile luster and subtlety, possibly exaggerated by the close microphone placement and twangy patina typical of late 1940s/early 1950s piano recordings stemming from RCA’s Hollywood recording studio. For example, the two Debussy Arabesques recorded in New York in 1939 have a supple elegance missing in their glassy-sounding 1950 Hollywood counterparts (sound clips). The blustery, hard-toned, and harshly engineered Liszt Concerto No. 1, Mendelssohn Concerto No. 1, and Beethoven Concerto No. 3 were non-starters in their day, with the piano way up in the mix, relegating the crackerjack RCA Symphony musicians to doormat status. Still, the Mendelssohn’s outer movements feature some of Iturbi’s most scintillating pianism on disc.
While Iturbi’s two-piano distribution of the solo part of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue is surprisingly effective and discreet, he and his pianist sister Amparo turn in a crass, alternately whipped up, and sappily sentimentalized interpretation. Works of Mozart, Debussy, and Milhaud better represent their dazzling ensemble rapport, but again, the boxy, claustrophobic engineering undermines their efforts. Similar dryness typifies Amparo’s idiomatic solo recordings of Spanish repertoire. Still, it’s nice to have her rare 1954 Granados Goyescas back in circulation, although it pales alongside Alicia de Larrocha’s far more nuanced and texturally differentiated interpretation from the following year.
The collection also showcases Iturbi’s work on the podium. His 1940 Rochester Philharmonic versions of the Mozart D minor and Beethoven C minor concertos are more judiciously balanced than his orchestrally superior 1952 RCA Victor Symphony remakes. Each contains lively and engaging outer movements that flank wooden, hard-toned slow movements.
Iturbi’s 1951 Liszt Hungarian Fantasy with the Valencia Symphony Orchestra has a snarling rawness that differs from the sheen and suavity of the 1952 Arrau/Ormandy and late 1940s Solomon and Moiseiwitsch editions. As with many second-tier American orchestras in the 1940s, the Rochester Philharmonic boasted strong strings but less proficient winds and brass. Consequently, Iturbi’s Mendelssohn “Scottish” Symphony took a back seat to Mitropoulos’ powerful 1941 Minneapolis version, while the aforementioned Dvorák New World lacked the Szell/Czech Philharmonic recording’s flavorful ensemble discipline.
The prize of Iturbi’s Rochester discography is a snazzy and brilliantly turned-out Morton Gould “Latin American” Symphonette, which is surprisingly well-engineered for its 1944 vintage. Another delightful curiosity is William J. Reddick’s Espanharlem, a brief orchestral work whose quick changing moods and jazzy underpinnings wouldn’t be out of place in a Carl Stalling Bugs Bunny cartoon soundtrack. There’s also a previously unpublished recording conducted by Werner Janssen of Iturbi’s orchestral composition Soliloquy. The piece amounts to 14 and a half minutes’ worth of rambling 1940s film music clichés filtered through third-rate Lecuona. Why Iturbi is credited as piano soloist when there’s no piano to be heard is anyone’s guess!
Notwithstanding the artistic unevenness of Iturbi’s recorded output he always had the self-respect to keep his technique in world-class repair, unlike his rival classical pianist turned media personality Oscar Levant. Still, music lovers who don’t want to go the whole hog, so to speak, are directed to APR’s 2016 three-disc solo Iturbi compilation. I also hope to see Iturbi’s post-cinema EMI recordings restored. However, beyond purely musical considerations, Sony/BMG’s collection stands as a valuable time capsule from which one comes away with a fuller understanding of Iturbi’s prominence in American wartime and postwar culture.
-- ClassicsToday.com (Jed Distler)
CONTENTS:
Introducing a revolutionary new CD that challenges the stereotypes and prejudices against the double bass. This tribute album showcases the full potential and versatility of the instrument, featuring compositions by renowned composers such as Myroslav Skoryks, John Rutter, Peteris Vasks, and Sergei Rachmaninov. Experience the warm, soft, and welcoming tone of the double bass as it takes center stage in this diverse collection of music. From the spiritual anthem of Ukraine, Melodie by Myroslav Skoryks, to the familiar choral sounds of John Rutter's The Lord Bless You and Keep You, this album is a love letter to the double bass and an invitation to embrace its songful and tuneful credentials.
The French pianist Ismaël Margain, newly signed up with naïve, creates a sensitive and meaningful juxtaposition of two major composers of piano repertoire, Frédéric Chopin and Gabriel Fauré. In spite of its title, this first album by the French pianist recorded under the naïve label is anything but improvised: Ismaël Margain cleverly structures the meeting between two piano geniuses, Frédéric Chopin and Gabriel Fauré, highlighting an “obvious kinship between their styles and in their inspiration,” without confusing or misrepresenting their uniqueness. The impromptu form, common to both composers – four for the first, six for the second –, is the starting point for this logical comparison, organising diversity of atmosphere around similar tonalities.
Despite its long history, the trombone has a very limited chamber music repertoire. Jörgen van Rijen, principal trombonist of the Concertgebouworkest, has wished to rectify this deficiency by initiating a fruitful collaboration between his own instrument and the string quartet, the pinnacle of chamber music. Mirrored in Time thus presents a collection of powerful arrangements and attractive new works covering a wide range of styles. Together with the Alma Quartet, van Rijen has created a wonderful springboard for the further development of the trombone repertoire in chamber music. Framed by adaptations of contemporary pieces by Bryce Dessner and Chiel Meijering respectively, this recording presents five pairs of works. Each of these consists of an arrangement of an existing composition from bygone times mirrored by a recent or completely new work. John Dowland is echoed by Nico Muhly, Béla Bartók by Dimitar Bodurov, Gabriel Fauré by Jacob TV, Erik Satie by Florian Magnus Maier and Robert Schumann by Martijn Padding. With this programme, Mirrored in Time tells the story of what might have been – and how it is now.
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