With their poetry, their passionate and intimate lyricism, their refined style that gradually reveals hidden depths, the thirteen Nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré are the most significant group of works in his oeuvre for solo piano. Composed over a period of forty-six years (between 1875 and 1821), they bear witness to the composer’s remarkable stylistic evolution. From a form of expression rooted in romanticism, to an aesthetic fully aligned with 20th-century modernity, Fauré can be said to have shaped his musical personality like a sculptor. His Nocturnes are not all of equal importance, but as a whole their diversity and development offer a perfect panorama of his art. Éric Le Sage, one of the French piano school’s main representatives, whose many recordings for Alpha include the complete chamber music of Fauré, here interprets the repertoire closest to his heart.

FAURÈ: PIANO WORKS VOL 1 KATH

Louis Lortie’s second volume of Fauré features Nocturnes, Barcarolles, and the Theme and Variations in C sharp minor, along with transcriptions of the ‘Pie Jesu’ and ‘In paradisum’ from the Requiem.

For over three decades, French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie has performed world-wide, building a reputation as one of the world’s most versatile pianists. He extends his interpretative voice across a broad spectrum of repertoire, and his performances and award-winning recordings attest to his remarkable musical range. In demand on five continents, Lortie has established long-term partnerships with orchestras such as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France and Dresden Philharmonic in Europe, and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, San Diego Symphony and St Louis Symphony in the US. In his native Canada he regularly performs with the major orchestras in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary. Further afield, collaborations include the Shanghai Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, and the Adelaide and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. Regular partnerships with conductors include, among others, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Edward Gardner, Sir Andrew Davis, Jaap Van Zweden, Simone Young, Antoni Wit and Thierry Fischer.

REVIEWS:

Louis Lortie plays every work on the album with detailed tonal color and a fine sense of appropriate rubato. The use of rubato is one of the most difficult aspects of Fauréan performance; Claire Croiza, a singer who performed with composer in concert, once said that Fauré had a metronome in place of his heart. Interpreters who lavish Chopinesque rubato on Faure’s phrases can make the music seem cheap and sentimental, a trap into which Lortie never falls. I should note that Lortie’s Fauré is not the weak, sickly Fauré of the drawing room; these are very much concert performances, with significant core to the sound and a wide range of dynamics. Although the entire album features beautiful playing, I will single out two pieces: the Ballade and the Thème and Variations.

The performance of the Ballade is particularly striking. Although a successful rendition can make it come off as a gorgeous yet fairly relaxed piece, the Ballade is in fact satanically difficult. The work’s prickly technical nature stems in part from its key signature (F# Major – six sharps!), but also from Fauré’s multi-layered texture that demands careful voicing of a melodic line that is often combined with myriad scales and arpeggios in the accompaniment. Liszt himself threw up his hands after attempting to sightread it, and Fauré later transcribed it for piano and orchestra, lessening the difficulty of the piano part to some extent. In Lortie’s hands, the solo version is enchanting, a veritable fairyland full of half-tints and sparkle.

Also remarkable is Lortie’s reading of the Thème et variations. This piece is a Gallic version of the Schumann Études symphoniques; it is elegant and moving at times, but lacks the obvious virtuosity of the older piece. As a result, few pianists tackle the Fauré, given the apathy it provokes in most audiences. Lortie is fearless in the thornier variations, playing at a breathless pace with much shape and detailed articulation. In the introspective variations, he plays with sensitivity and warmth.

– MusicWeb International

Lortie more than meets the pianistic and musical challenge of Fauré’s unshowy virtuosity, his riding of each dappled ebb and flow of the Barcarolles reflecting a mature mastery. Nor is there just the rarefied Fauré on show, his insouciant charm and playfulness being to the fore and captured perfectly in the Theme and Variations. Lortie provides an object lesson in pacing of the Nocturnes.

– BBC Music Magazine

The second volume of Louis Lortie’s series of Fauré recitals offers the kind of solace that repays repeated hearings, with the prospect of enjoyment increasing with each one. It is Lortie’s sincerity and naturalness, infused with the utmost sensitivity and a wide colouristic palette, that makes him a star shining only a fraction less brightly than the uneclipsed Thyssens-Valentin.

– Gramophone

Yamen Saadi was born in Nazareth in 1997. He started to study the violin at the Barenboim-Said Conservatory in Nazareth, and after that began to study under the guidance of the renowned Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra Concertmaster, Chaim Taub. At only 11 years old, Saadi joined the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Daniel Barenboim. 6 years later he served as concertmaster of the orchestra. VOICES FROM PARIS is the debut album of this outstanding young musician. Saadi is a numerous prize winner of competitions and scholarships such as 1st prize Aviv Competition, The Prince von Hessen Award, 1st prize Paul Ben Haim competition, 2nd prize Clermont competition, AICF scholarships. Saadi is currently playing on a violin made by Antonio Stradivari 1734, the “Ex Lord Amherst of Hackney, Ex Fritz Kreisler” and a beautiful Jacob Eury bow, both generously loaned to him by Stephan Jansen on behalf a member of the Stretton society. Born in 1995 to a family of musicians, Nathalia Milstein starts the piano at the age of 4 with her father Serguei Milstein, and completes her studies with Nelson Goerner at the Geneva Haute Ecole de Musique as well as with Sir András Schiff at the Barenboim-Saïd Akademie in Berlin. Nathalia launches her international career in 2015 by winning 1st Prize at the Dublin International Piano Competition and has been since then touring extensively around Europe, appearing in major concert halls and festivals, as well as with orchestra with, among other conductors, Mikko Franck, John Storgårds, and Arie van Beek. In 2017 she was awarded the Young Soloist Prize by the Médias Francophones Publics.