Acclaimed concert violinist Rachel Barton Pine, sought-after pianist Orion Weiss, and the multiple Grammy Award-winning Pacifica Quartet join forces for their new album French Impressions: Chamber Music by Chausson & Tailleferre, celebrating transformational works by French composers Ernest Chausson and Germaine Tailleferre, whose chamber music deserves greater attention on recordings. Chausson's Op. 21 sextet, titled Concert, known for it's unusual orchestration of solo violin, string quartet, and piano, takes advantage of the quasi-orchestral capabilities of a chamber ensemble. The only work on the album featuring Rachel Barton Pine, Pacifica Quartet, and Orion Weiss as a collective, Concert is regarded as one of the most important French chamber music works of the late-19th-century fin-de-siecle era. Germaine Tailleferre was a prolific composer and the only female member of the group of celebrated 20th-century French composers known as Les Six. Tailleferre was a piano prodigy who enrolled at the Paris Conservatoire at age 12, defying her father's objections. Her compositions span symphonic, chamber, and film music. A winner of numerous premiere prix, she studied with revered composers including Maurice Ravel, whose work significantly influenced her versatile style. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine showcases her "astonishing and joyful" (Washington Post) artistry, alongside the "powerful technique and exceptional insight" (Washington Post) of pianist Orion Weiss for Tailleferre's Violin Sonata No. 2, Pastorale, and Berceuse for Violin and Piano - works that often express a nostalgic longing for home and display dynamic and adventurous interplay between the violin and piano. The Pacifica Quartet, known for it's "remarkable expressive range and tonal beauty" (New York Times), is featured on Tailleferre's String Quartet, a piece acclaimed for it's playful themes, fluid accompanimental figuration, and bold harmonies.

Principal conductor Ivor Bolton will bid farewell to 'his' orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, in summer 2025 with a 'French' album. He will hand over the baton to his successor Markus Poschner for the new season. So as a farewell, here are symphonic and vocal works by Ernest Chausson. The Symphony in B flat major recorded here is characterised by it's lyrical melody and harmonic sophistication, which builds a bridge between romantic expressiveness and impressionistic sounds. In comparison, the vocal works also presented here, such as 'Viviane' or 'Helene', often have a more intimate, vocal quality that emphasises the human voice. These differences illustrate Chausson's versatility as a composer and his ability to combine fascinating instrumentation with profound emotions in both instrumental and vocal music.

Combining Debussy's music with works by Ernest Chausson and Maurice Emmanuel on one CD is by no means an arbitrary choice, but proof of the diversity and vitality of French music at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Especially as both are composers he admired and valued as colleagues who are unjustly neglected today.

Monteux's 1950 mono recording [of the Chausson Symphony] is brilliantly lit (and bass-boosted), faithfully capturing the more transported 'playing out' of his San Francisco players, and of Monteux's own relishing of the Symphony's Wagnerian synthesis (space doesn't permit itemizing all the Symphony's constituent Wagnerisms, so I'll settle for Magic Fire Music in the first movement; storm and horseback-ride in the third; and Tristan all over the place). Monteux's choice and gearing of tempos also has that quality of 'rightness' you recognize within minutes - all of which prompts the thought that if there were more conductors of Monteux's persuasion around, this Symphony wouldn't be playing second fiddle to the César Franck.

-- Gramophone [4/1998]

Le temps des lilas is an ode to Romanticism, a love song and a nostalgic reflection on the bittersweet beauty of lost happiness. Dedicated to the music of Ernest Chausson, this album oscillates between passion and melancholy, wonder and nostalgia. The Concert Op. 21, a masterly work on the borderline between chamber music and orchestra, is carried by Pierre Fouchenneret's magnetic violin and David Violi's colorful piano. I Giardini also deliver a previously unpublished version of Poeme Op. 25, reworked for violin, piano and string quartet. The album closes with Pauline Buet's equally sensitive retelling of Chausson and Barbara's 'Temps des/du lilas', using cello in the former and singing voice in the latter. Barbara's song and Chausson's melody stand as a simple, timeless tribute to the magic of past moments and the fragility of human existence. Le temps des lilas is I Giardini's first full-length album for PENTATONE, following an already rich discography: Nuits (which has been awarded the prestigious Diapason d'Or), Bleu, Shaw and Faure, an EP released with PENTATONE in 2024.

NUITS D'ETE

Chausson: Symphony No. 20, Soir de fête & The Tempest

Poème

Chausson: Symphony in B-Flat Major / Viviane / Soir De Fete

Written between 1889 and 1891, the Concert is unique in the chamber music repertoire—scored for solo violin and piano with string quartet. Chausson entitled it Concert (French for concerto) rather than “Sextet,” but the work lies somewhere between a double concerto, in which the two solo instruments are pitted against an entire orchestra, and a sextet, in which all the instruments are more or less equal. Chausson dedicated the Concert to Eugène Ysaÿe, who played the solo violin part at the premiere in Brussels on March 4, 1892. The Crickboom Quartet played the remaining string parts, and Auguste Pierret, the pianist. The artists on this CD perform at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Cadogan Hall (London), 92nd Street Y’s Kaufmann Concert Hall (New York), National Gallery of Art (Washington DC), Bolívar Hall (London), Teatro Teresa Carreño (Caracas), Auditorio Blas Galindo (México, DF), Auditorio Manuel de Falla, (Granada), the Teatro Mayor (Bogotá), and for renowned organizations such as the BBC Proms Festival, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Chamber Music Society of Detroit.

This disc features four great Victorian works for Cello and Piano. This is literature that deserves to be a part of the standard repertoire.

This is the sixth recording by the Doric String Quartet for Chandos Records, and the discography is going from strength to strength. The album of Schumann’s String Quartets, Op. 41 was ‘Recording of the Month’ simultaneously in BBC Music and Gramophone, and nominated for a Gramophone Award in the Chamber Music category in 2012.

The Quartet here turns to the French composer Ernest Chausson. The work of this composer is deeply individual, but it does reflect some technical influences of Wagner too, and of César Franck, his other musical hero. In general, Chausson’s compositional style bridges the gap between the ripe romanticism of Massenet and Franck, and the more introverted impressionism of Debussy.

The String Quartet in C minor was the last piece on which Chausson would ever work. He had fully scored all but part of the third and last movement when in 1899, at the age of forty-four, he suffered a fatal bicycle accident – in fact, he was engaged in writing the last movement on the very day of his accident. Relying on the drafts left behind by the composer, Vincent d’Indy completed the final movement at the request of Chausson’s family.

‘Never have I had such a success! I can’t get over it. Everyone seems to love the Concert.’ These are the words that Chausson, clearly elated, wrote in his diary after the first performance, in 1892, of his Concert in D major for violin, piano, and string quartet. The work is a model of cohesion, with strong ideas and melodies of great impact. Indeed, the autograph manuscript is covered with alterations and crossings-out, a sign of the composer’s drive towards absolute perfection in this masterpiece of chamber music.

In the Concert, the Doric String Quartet shares the stage with another exclusive Chandos artist, Jennifer Pike, who in 2002, at the age of twelve, notably became the youngest-ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. She has given performances throughout the UK and abroad and, now aged just twenty-three, is widely regarded as one of the finest violinists in Britain. Tom Poster is internationally recognised as a pianist of outstanding artistry and versatility, equally in demand as a soloist and as a chamber musician across an unusually extensive repertoire. - Chandos

POÊME DE L'AMOUR OP19+QUATUOR

Vocal Recital: Dawson, Lynne - Poulenc, F. / Hahn, R. / Chau

This new large-scale setting of the Magnificat has been written as a companion piece to J.S. Bach’s famous setting (BWV 243). Although making use of a more contemporary musical language, it uses similar instrumentation, follows the same framework of chorus and solo movements, and makes use of a number of features that are typical of Bach’s music.