The first writing workshops, for inmates and on which composer Thierry Machuel, in residence at Clairvaux, collaborated, were initiated in 2008 by the 'Ombres et lumières' festival and continued in 2009. That year, the monks of Cîteaux also agreed to write in response to the prisoners, thereby recreating the double vocation of Clairvaux: abbey and prison. The group of texts was thus set to music following numerous exchanges. This artistic adventure is related in Or, les murs, the documentary by Julien Sallé, filmed within the prison itself and offering the inmates a rare opportunity for self-expression. It is my pleasure to invite you to see and hear one of the finest proofs that art and culture can restore to everyone the human dignity to which every man is entitled.

French composer Bruno Mantovani now has a fair few CDs to his credit. This is the sixth devoted entirely to his works, and the third by French label Aeon.

Critics have previously stressed Mantovani's inclination towards the employment of jazz and pop techniques in his writing - faint-praising him in one case by likening him to a French Mark-Anthony Turnage - but there is nothing of that kind in these works. Nor does his music bear any resemblance, thankfully, to his mononymous namesake, the late Italian cascading-strings maestro. 

A concerto for two violas is, somewhat surprisingly, a pretty novel idea. Two violins, or one violin and one viola have been done a few times, but concertos for two violas do not come easily to mind - Bach's 'Brandenburg' Concerto no.6 is perhaps the only obvious example of a sort. Leaving aside questions of its modern idiom, the dark, delicious sonorities created by the two soloists in Mantovani's concerto cast doubt on the artistic legitimacy of such neglect.
 
The Double Viola Concerto was written for and premiered by the two soloists in this recording. There’s the young French violist Antoine Tamestit and the hugely experienced German Tabea Zimmermann. The latter is known for her commitment to new music. Some may remember her as the dedicatee of Ligeti's outrageous Solo Viola Sonata, which was recorded by Geneviève Strosser and released by Aeon almost concurrently with this Mantovani disc. The standard of playing here is predictably brilliant, and that goes for members of the orchestra too - there is a lot of virtuosic writing splashed across the score.  

In terms of scale, structure and concertante ideas, this work is not unlike a traditional Romantic concerto, but the gestures and phrasing leave no doubt as to its modernity. Nonetheless, diatonic bits and pieces put in various cameo appearances, and the overall effect is of loose concinnity. Those whose ears are attuned to this style of communication will recognise a major work - and, fingers crossed, a genre trendsetter.
 
Finale was commissioned by the international conducting competition at Besançon as a test-piece for the final round in 2007. Competitors might well have hoped for something a little easier! The piece has a sizable role for solo flute, which lulls the listener into an immediate false sense of security in a gentle, almost pastoral introduction. Generally speaking, the work consists of a number of clamorous, yet coherent, and vaguely tonal, climaxes by the tutti. These are separated by quieter passages, often featuring the solo flute over a more subdued orchestra characterised now by long-held drones. 

Time Stretch (on Gesualdo) is a fairly similar work. This is all the more so, probably, for those less than impressed by Mantovani's burred style. Here the soloist's mantle is taken over by the clarinet. The work was commissioned and premiered by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. The title comes from a reference of some sort to a madrigal of Mantovani's great predecessor embedded deep in the music. Mantovani's explanation for it in the interview will probably strike the general reader as decidedly French. For example, he describes his approach as "a kind of rape of Gesualdo, since his writing was quite obviously horizontal and contrapuntal, and I take vertical consequences from it.[...] My music is [...] - to use ready-made concepts - a mise en abyme. It is a form of relativisation, like adding spice to a dish." 

The Liège Royal Philharmonic, though not a high-profile orchestra, turn in fine performances in all three works, for what is often demanding music. Finale and Time Stretch in particular require a very nimble-fingered, big-lunged brass section, and fast changes in tempo and dynamics in general. Pascal Rophé continues his very commendable dedication to the works of living French composers. 

Sound quality and production values are excellent. The card-based 'jewel case' may not be to everyone's liking - sliding the booklet back into its slot requires kid gloves. But the booklet itself is attractive and informative. An interview with Mantovani enterprisingly replaces the standard notes format, whilst still communicating all the expected material. The translations are well done on the whole, although there are one or two eyebrow-raisers dotted about, whether factual or terminological. For example, the notes say that Mantovani's work often reflects "popular forms" such as "jazz [and] Eastern music"; that he is "headmaster of the Paris Conservatory"; and that he has collaborated not only with librettists and choreographers, but also with a Catalan chef - presumably on some kind of salsa.
 
-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

Harrison Birtwistle is unquestionably one of the most frequently performed British composers on the contemporary scene. Although bowed strings are the raison d'être of this disc, their absence is no less conspicuous in the composer's early and mature works, for he waited until he was nearly 60 before writing for string quartet, strictly speaking, and the works brought together here remain, up to the present day, his only original works written exclusively for strings. The recording of these works by the Arditti Quartet, dedicatee of the String Quartet: The Tree of Strings, which was composed for them, reflects the most recent development resulting from Birtwistle's working with this ensemble over the past twenty years.

"I'd never heard the Brentano before, this was their British debut, but I knew of their reputation. And the agile, wiry intelligence of their playing, in a constant state of alert, was...good as promised. They followed with as momentous a performance of Beethoven's Op. 130 quartets as I've ever heard live...Passionate, uninhibited and spell-bounding." - The Independent

"The Brentano String Quartet brings a special level of refinement and attention to detail... Among its many strengths is an ability to deliver on the chamber music ideals of equal partnership and intellectual dialogue. The group produces a sound that gives the impression of a single, unified instrument that is beautifully balanced and sensitive to the changing importance of individual lines." - AllMusic Guide

The Brentano Quartet’s third volume of Beethoven’s Late String Quartets for æon features the opp. 130/133. + The relation between form and language seems to haunt the writing of the B flat major Quartet, the composer struggling with the enigmatic question of our intimate experience in relation to music and the sense of musical composition. + However, in the Grosse Fuge, op. 133, Beethoven the visionary proclaims his unshakeable faith in the world like an implacable will facing menace and chaos. + The pertinence of the struggle marks the work’s structure and character, one of his most inspired.

Founded in 1992, the New York-based Brentano Quartet is known for its interpretations combining perfect technique and matchless musicality. Those qualities are even more obvious in this series of late Beethoven quartets with this first volume bringing together the Op. 127 and 131. This pure crystal of intelligence and brilliance will doubtless constitute a milestone.

An unexpected yet carefully constructed programme in irresistible performances from this Belgian soprano.

This is a dream of a programme, and the performances by Belgian soprano Anne-Catherine Gillet are enchanting.

When the American journalist and writer James Agee died prematurely in 1955, his magnificent autobiographical novel A Death in the Family was complete but still in an early draft. It was published in this form and is a most moving work. Also amongst his papers was found a passage of prose entitled “Knoxville: Summer 1915”, and Agee’s first editor decided to place this at the head of the book as a kind of prologue. It’s a magical evocation of a summer’s evening seen through the eyes of a child, Agee himself. Samuel Barber selected passages from this piece, resulting in a short vocal work that falls into three main sections.

In an interview in the booklet, Anne-Marie Gillet expresses surprise at those who refer to her voice as “bright”. Bright it is, though, but there is richness there too, and power enough to explain her success in the opera house. Her tuning is spot-on, and her stratospheric region – quite frequently explored in this work – sublime. Only very occasionally is she betrayed by her English pronunciation. Since a child is meant to be speaking, the very opulence of the voice might be thought inappropriate, but Barber understood that it was Agee’s adult voice that was recalling this nostalgic scene, and his music reflects this. At a fairly deliberate main tempo, Gillet evokes the evening in the garden with the family, doing not much of anything, hardly even talking. The scene is calm, hot and perfumed. The animated middle section, with its noise of streetcars, is particularly dramatic in this performance. Then comes the heart of the work, in which the different members of the family are presented, describing them in simple, childlike detail. The line “one is my mother who is good to me” – this never fails to bring a flutter to my foolish old heart, not to mention a tear to my foolish old eye – is delivered here with just the rapture that the composer surely intended. There are some surprises, such as the final phrase, “but will not ever tell me who I am”, usually sung wistfully, is delivered here full voice, with a dramatic little crescendo added on the final note. It’s not the only way to do it, but it convinces. I now find it difficult to imagine this adorable, short masterpiece better done.

Les Illuminations is a probably a masterpiece too. At the very least, the brilliance and precocity of the writing from such a young man cannot be denied. Even so, I have never quite been able to “get” this work, no doubt in part because I’ve never quite “got” Rimbaud’s poetry, and a still, small voice whispers in my ear that maybe Britten didn’t either. To put it more seriously, I think that, almost uniquely in his career, he didn’t get to the heart of the texts he was setting. In “Being Beauteous”, for example, one appreciates the translation into music of the languid sensuality of the words, but it doesn’t feel like the whole story. The performance, however, is magnificent. The opening fanfares have sounded tauter in other performances, not least in the classic from Peter Pears conducted by the composer. But the soprano’s very first phrase confirms that here is a singer able to invest almost every note, every word, with character. Her downward glissando from the high B flat in “Phrase” is as ravishing as I have ever heard it, and the following “Antique” opens with a most attractive smile and continues with almost uncanny narrative skill. I think the tempo for “Royauté” is too fast both for the music and for the words, not really “majestic” as the score demands. I also find that the silences between these short songs is too long. But the coloratura in the following “Marine” is brilliant, and the singer’s control of line makes for a closing “Départ” – for me the most sincere and most successful song of the whole set – convincing and very touching.

If I have doubts about Britten’s way with Rimbaud, I believe that Les Nuits d’été is a near-perfect marriage of words and music. Régine Crespin and Janet Baker are hors de combat in this repertoire, but in recent years I have come to admire, even to prefer, the performance by Véronique Gens with the Lyons Opera Orchestra conducted by Louis Langrée, recorded by Virgin in 2000. She has more of the mezzo in her voice than does Gillet, and that without sacrificing anything in the way of brilliance up top. She has rather more variety of tone colour overall, too, using it to tease just a little more meaning out of the words. So this new version doesn’t quite topple my favourite reading, but it comes very close, because once again the Belgian soprano sings with such ardent and open-hearted sincerity that the listener is won over. She is eager and impulsive in the first and last songs, and the tragic songs of mourning are powerfully expressed. The Liège orchestra’s playing is first class throughout, and Paul Daniel accompanies his singer most sensitively, whilst, in the Berlioz particularly, bringing out felicities of scoring that are not always heard with such clarity.

The disc is beautifully recorded. Just occasionally, in quiet passages, the voice might cover some orchestral detail, but this is a marginal problem. The singer presents the programme in the interesting booklet interview previously mentioned, and information on the performers, plus all the texts, are included too, in French and English. Not to be missed!

-- William Hedley, MusicWeb International

...Here is my humble tribute to someone who, with his music, managed to cultivate in me the taste and desire to champion the character and colours of the folk music of Argentina. - Robert Aussel

There are certain types of music that affirm and triumph. Others suggest a distance, a gentle journey towards far-off lands. Jérôme Combier is of this race of vagabonds. His music plunges the listener into a deep, rarefied atmosphere, dense with multiple, ghostly apparitions that set the imagination free. Here and there, a line of shadows interferes between the real voices, as if coming out of nowhere. Straight away, Combier’s music does away with the references of pitches, the distinction between sounds, breaths and friction, gone into more deeply with the electronics and closely connected to rainfalls of sand, murmurs of the wind… The electronics have this function, eroding the sonority borne by the instruments, diluting harmonies and scales in gentle saturations, sounds loaded with grain. The works brought together in this album, performed by the nec plus ultra of the music of our time, immerse us in a diaphanous glow. This is a rare recording of the highest quality!

2018 Gramophone Magazine Contemporary Album of the Year

With this album coupling his Sixth and Seventh string quartets, the æon label completes its recording of all the quartets of Pascal Dusapin with the Arditti Quartet. This second release follows the earlier recording of his first five works in the genre, released in 2009. Complicity, transmission, comprehension: Pascal Dusapin’s output has been so familiar to and closely associated with these musicians since the 1980s (six of the works were composed for them) that it has become inseparable from them. The present edition reveals a trajectory that has lasted more than thirty years now and has established a coherent corpus over time. It helps the listener to grasp some of the composer’s deep-seated aspirations and the evolution of his style. The Arditti Quartet enjoys a worldwide reputation for their spirited and technically refined interpretations of contemporary and earlier 20th century music. Many hundreds of string quartets and other chamber works have been written for the ensemble since its foundation by first violinist Irvine Arditti in 1974. Many of these works have left a permanent mark on twentieth century repertoire and have given the Arditti Quartet a firm place in music history. Over the past thirty years, the ensemble has received many prizes for its work. They have won the Deutsche Schallplatten Preis several times and the Gramophone Award for the best recording of contemporary music in 1999 and 2002. In 2004 they were awarded the ‘Coup de Coeur’ prize by the Academie Charles Cros in France for their exceptional contribution to the dissemination of contemporary music.

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REVIEWS:

The remarkable Quatuor VII, Open Time, a huge set of 21 variations, lasting nearly 40 minutes receives here a magisterial performance.

– Guardian (UK)

Both works reaffirm the composer’s quartet cycle as among the most significant now emerging.

– Gramophone