Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Sandrine Piau and David Kadouch are reuniting for a project that the French soprano conceived as the second part of a diptych begun with Voyage intime (Alpha 911). This time we enter the world of childhood, but even though this album is called Contes, 'these aren't stories for children,' says David Kadouch. Actually, these stories might even present themselves in a way that provokes anxiety-dark and menacing Sandrine Piau continues: 'Folk tales and legends often serve as an initiation, and they also act providentially as pebbles that guide us through the forest of our most secret atavistic fears.' With their well-known and recognised expertise, Piau and Kadouch bring together composers from a variety of linguistic and artistic backgrounds-Hahn, Debussy, Ravel, Wolf, Strauss, Zemlinsky, Poulenc, Shostakovich-and introduce us to fascinating female composers such as Jeanne Bernard (1895-1965), Wally Karnevo (1914-2015), Louise Didier (1872-1955), and Ilse Weber (1903-1944).

The soprano (and ukulele player) Agathe Peyrat and the accordionist (and singer) Pierre Cussac form a unique duo, free-spirited and open to blending genres. In this programme, they embrace a classical repertoire, while putting their own spin on it "by turning the pieces into songs, with night and day as the theme." We discover an astonishing version of Mozart's Queen of the Night, melodies and opera arias by Debussy, Bizet, Saint-Saens, Puccini, Delibes and Wagner, as well as songs by Maurice Yvain, Charles Trenet, Andre Minvielle and Brigitte Fontaine, all arranged by the two artists, who play with every nuance between black and white, darkness and light: 'On this recording, light represents the great joy we feel when we play together - a joy we love to share."

Italian guitarist Francesco Molmenti plays the historic Antonio de Torres 1884 guitar from the 'Carlo Carutti Collection, ' located at the Ala Ponzone Civic Museum in Cremona. Antonio de Torres Jurado (Almeria, 13 giugno 1817 - 19 novembre 1892) stands as a central figure in the history of guitar making. His contribution was crucial in defining the dimensions, shape, design, and construction technique of the modern classical guitar. Thanks to his work, the instrument acquired the features that still distinguish it today. Torres' training most likely took place in Granada. This formative period coincided with what is known as the first era of his activity, which ended in 1869. During these years, the technical and artistic level achieved by the Spanish luthier was particularly high, confirming him as one of the greatest makers of his time. After a break of several years, Torres began in 1875 what is defined as the second era of his production. This phase, which continued until his death in 1892, was characterised by a perfect balance between shape, proportions, weight, and dimensions, elements that made his guitars models of reference for generations of luthiers. The more than one hundred known guitars built by Torres were admired and often imitated: over the years, many instruments were attributed to him, even if they were fakes, sometimes made by renowned and skilled luthiers. A representative example of Torres' work is the guitar preserved in the Carlo Alberto Carutti collection. Built in Almeria, the instrument features a label with the date 1884 and progressive number 59, placing it in the 'second period' of the luthier's creative activity. This era was characterised by the use of more economical woods such as cypress and mahogany, which Torres alternated with finer materials such as maple and Brazilian rosewood intended for top-end instruments. Different options that did not affect the sound quality of the guitars made by the Almeria luthier. Two elements give coherence and unity to the programme of this recording. First, all the selected pieces share the presence of a female name in their title; moreover, almost all the composers are of Spanish origin (with the exception of Claude Debussy) and lived during the period in which Antonio de Torres (Almeria, 1817-1892) built his guitars. It is known that Julian Arcas, Francisco Tarrega, Miguel Llobet, and Antonio Jimenez Manjon played instruments crafted by Torres. Of the other composers, fewer biographical details are known, but the aesthetics of their works perfectly match the timbre and sensitivity of the nineteenth-century guitar. The programme also includes two compositions by non-guitarist composers: La maja de Goya by Enrique Granados and La fille aux cheveux de lin by Claude Debussy. The former, in Miguel Llobet's transcription, is ideally connected to the selection of Catalan songs; the latter, conceived as a 'bonus track, ' is a poetic homage to the French composer and to his ideal dialogue with Spain - a country he never visited, yet deeply evoked, as in La soiree dans Grenade.

DEBUSSY: PRELUDES SATIE: GYMNOPEDIES GNOSSIENNES

'Claude Debussy is still the greatest musical enigma that has ever existed,' said Aldo Ciccolini. 'You never get to the bottom of his music. That is perhaps why he will never be forgotten: people will never give up trying to make sense of him. Debussy never fails to surprise you and his music has a charm that is quite indefinable.' Ciccolini, though born in Naples, confessed to having a French soul and he distinguished himself as a supremely subtle and illuminating interpreter of the composer who described himself as 'musicien francais'.

RCA's new Classic Library series hits a high mark with this excellent Debussy/Munch collection. Charles Munch's Debussy performances always have been treasured for their color, vitality, and seeming oneness with the composer's conception. It's hard to imagine finer performances of Images or the two Nocturnes. Munch's rhythmic sense and timbral distinctiveness vividly render Debussy's multi-layered textures and subtly varied moods. Then there's the Boston Symphony, captured at the height of its glory, offering vibrant, virtuoso playing from all sections. Listen to the burnished brass in the first movement of Iberia, the lively woodwinds in Fêtes, or the silken strings in Nuages. Munch's suave La Mer is at a slightly lower level of intensity and must yield to Boulez's brilliant Cleveland performance on DG.


RCA's sound for the most part is so vivid and dynamic (La Mer carries a bit of tape hiss) that you hardly can believe the recordings are more than 40 years old. If only the missing Sirènes movement from Nocturnes had been included, this would serve as a Debussy orchestral-music library staple. As it stands it's a great--and essential, if supplemental, collection. [5/19/2004]
--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

Leif Ove Andsnes is a leading pianist of his time, known for his exceptional musicianship and subtil touch, his considerable technical flair being unfailingly put at the service of his interpretations. He was a pioneer for being the first home-trained superstar pianist to have emerged from Norway. This box is the story of a 20-year partnership that has yielded a rich seam of recorded treasures, first for Virgin and then for EMI. Running through this cornucopia of 34 albums (36 CDs), we find recurring themes: Grieg (Andsnes even recorded some Lyric Pieces on the composer's own piano at Troldhaugen), Nordic music in general, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Schubert.

Debussy: La mer, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune, Danse &

Walter Gieseking (1933-1947)

DEBUSSY: LE MARTYR DE SAINT-SE

Guarneri Quartet. RCA Silver Seal 60909-2 [with Ravel: Quartet in F; Debussy: Suite bergamasque (Alexis Weissenberg, piano)].

The Guarneri Quartet’s 1973 recording, sounding a little wooly but nonetheless quite lovely on CD, conveys the music with endearing sweetness and warmth. No group has ever gotten closer to the spirit of Debussy’s slow movement, or more beautifully captured its fragrant atmosphere and attenuated, almost heartbreaking sentiment. First violinist Arnold Steinhardt is exquisite here, and the group’s playing overall is remarkably polished. – Ted Libbey, author of The NPR Guide to Building a Classical CD Collection.

Entr'acte

Wind Chamber Music 1

Poème

Works For Two Pianos

Denmark’s leading instrumentalists Ulla Miilmann (flute) and Tine Rehling (harp) joined forces to record a superb collection of late romantic and impressionistic works by an alley of foremost composers of France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ulla Miilmann and Tine Rehling began their collaboration as duo in 2007. They have since been dazzling wide range of audiences with their pure and elegant interpretation of repertoire with a significant emphasis on French music.

Prophets of the New is a series from Sony focusing on classic recordings of the 20th century's most revolutionary works. Le Sacre du Printemps serves as a point of reference to all who seek to establish the birth certificate of what is still called “contemporary” music.

R E V I E W S

There is a controlled intensity about Boulez's 1971 New York performance of Petrushka... In The Rite of Spring...Boulez is less lyrical than the composer but compensates with relentless rhythmic urgency. The massive vividness of sound matches the monolithic quality of the interpretation.

-- Penguin Guide
reviewing Le Sacre du Printemps previously reissued on Sony 64109

The pianist Élodie Vignon discovered and explored this perilous repertory of Debussy when she was still very young… She captured its poetic power, and she has never confused it with the vague and the approximate. She understood very early on that, for a pianist, Debussy’s last great cycle presented an inexhaustible reservoir of passion and rigour, of fire and precision, of work and relaxation. Her committed, precise interpretation, that keeps her ever in movement, ever in investigation, shows this, and she does not hide it, declaring that the "Études" never tire her and that, wherever she may be in the world, she feels at home when she plays them. The second part of the album counts twelve poems by the Belgian poet Lucien Noullez written for Élodie Vignon and her vision of the Études. Clara Inglese tell them above the echo of Élodie's music.

Classical Music

An important marker in Debussy’s compositional development, the Fantaisie reflects something of the influence of César Franck’s Symphonic Variations yet embodies his own new aesthetic. Unpublished in Debussy’s lifetime, it is heard here in its 1968 revision. The delicately evocative Rapsodie for saxophone is an exotic work with an ‘oriental’ atmosphere and Spanish or Moorish associations. Although composed as a Conservatoire test piece, the Première Rapsodie for Clarinet has long since entered the repertoire as an important addition for the instrument. The glittering Danses for harp and strings recall Satie’s Gymnopédies, with the Danse profane in particular calling for a degree of virtuosity. Volume 6 of this much-admired series (Naxos 8.572583) was praised for its ‘subtle and sensitive readings’. (Gramophone)

"We've reached Volume 7 in Naxos's superb Lyonnaise exploration of Debussy's orchestral works with the thrilling Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra, superbly played here by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. It's a grand showpiece, reminiscent of César Franck's Symphonic Variations but painted in Debussy's inimitable palette."

-- Stephen Pritchard, The Observer [11/19/2011]

Includes work(s) for pno by Claude Debussy. Soloist: François-Joël Thiollier.

Classical Music

(...) But what insights into the chemistry, the constructional and structural wonders of these Préludes do Koroliov's musical-pathological dissections allow? They lead into the inside of this texture, invalidating all that one has experienced for frightful - and then again delightful - moments of thinking and feeling. In a peaceable way, they force one to unbiased expose oneself to a strange experience, yet, in the next moment, a familiar experience once again. (Klassik. Heute. De)

Crossley's playing of ''Brouillards'' (the first Prelude of Book 2) successfully evokes the disturbing fog of a winter night in which objects appear suddenly and menacingly. I actually think the marking Modere suggests a quicker tempo—Gieseking takes 2'44'' as against Crossley's 3'33'', but there again, the admirably sensitive Gordon Fergus-Thompson takes a minute longer than Crossley!... This Debussy is beautifully textured, with fine control of fingers and pedals; indeed, it is most sympathetically presented and the recording, made at The Maltings, Snape, is satisfyingly atmospheric, with a glowing sound rather than a brilliant one... This applies equally to the Estampes and Children's Corner. In the former work. ''Pagodes'' is a touch deliberate, but has lovely sounds; indeed, Crossley's tonal beauty is consistent...

-- Christopher Headington, Gramophone [9/1993]

When Debussy completes the score, based on the eponymous symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck, of Pelleas et Melisande in 1902, the world of opera still abides by Richard Wagner and the upheaval he caused with Tristan und Isolde. But Debussy decides to stand on the exact opposite side, and uses his new opus to preach a new aesthetic creed. In depicting the forbidden love story between the timid Pelleas and the beautiful Melisande, kept apart by an unfortunate marriage, the French composer brings us back to the immortal legend of Tristan and Isolde, but this time showing the world that the future of music could very well lie far away from Wagner’s overwhelming lyricism and outsized rhetoric. This new production, created by one of the rising stars of French stage direction Benjamin Lazar for the Malmö Opera (headed by Ingmar Bergman from 1952 to 1958), encapsulates all the different aspects of this mysterious work, from the oniric poetry invented by Maeterlinck and Debussy to the realism, poignant because openly simple and even mundane, of these profoundly human beings lost in a forest full of sound and symbols that will never let them escape. The young French conductor Maxime Pascal, the Orchestra of the Malmö Opera, and an almost all-French cast (among which the excellent Marc Mauillon and Jenny Daviet), bring forth with intelligence all the refinement and all the vitality this unique and fascinating score has to offer.

THE ROYAL EDITION - DEBUSSY: I

Kultur SPIEGEL, January 2005: "There are good pianists, there are grandiose pianists and there is Evgeni Koroliov: In each recording the Russian pianist, who hitherto was mainly to be heard playing Bach, sets new standards. With Debussy he competes with champions such as Gieseking or Michelangelo - and triumphs: this round of portraits of atmosphere, hovering wonderfully between jest and seriousness, has never before sounded so expressive or transparent."