Classical Music

After a first recital album devoted to Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Denisov in the company of the pianist Jonas Vitaud, Victor Julien-Laferrière now presents two cello concertos by Antonín Dvorák (op.104) and Bohuslav Martinu (no.1, H196), accompanied by the Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Gergely Madaras.

The winner of the very first Queen Elisabeth Competition for cellists in Brussels in 2017, Victor Julien-Laferri�re also received the Victoire de la Musique Classique in 2018 in the category 'Soloist of the Year'. His chamber recordings with the pianist Adam Laloum have won numerous awards, including a Diapason d'Or of the Year in 2016. Victor Julien-Laferri�re now joins Alpha Classics for several recordings. The French cellist, who studied successively with Roland Pidoux, Heinrich Schiff and Clemens Hagen, has decided to record two peaks of his instrument's repertory, the sonatas of Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich, alongside the pianist Jonas Vitaud, with whom he enjoys a close rapport. They have given this programme in concert together on many occasions. A rare piece by Russian composer Edison Denisov completes the album: the Variations on a Theme by Schubert, composed in 1986.

Specchio veneziano or the Venetian mirror – this programme compares and contrasts two composers from the city of the Doges: on the one hand the celebrated Vivaldi, on the other a virtual unknown, Giovanni Battista Reali, who was born there in 1681, three years after Vivaldi, and died in 1751, ten years after his illustrious colleague. A violinist himself, he composed trio sonatas, including a very spectacular Folia, which Théotime Langlois de Swarte, Sophie de Bardonnèche, Hanna Salzenstein and Justin Taylor juxtapose with Vivaldi’s Folia, alongside other highly virtuosic pieces, many of them complete rediscoveries, since half of this program has never been recorded before.

A towering figure in French music of the later 19th century, C�sar Franck created a distinctive fusion of German Romanticism and French Classicism, enriching the symphonic, chamber, instrumental, vocal and sacred repertoires. As a teacher and mentor he gained admiration for his modesty and generosity while exercising a powerful influence on younger disciples such as Vincent d'Indy, Henri Duparc and Ernest Chausson. The C�sar Franck Edition gathers together all his masterworks - among them the Symphony in D, Violin Sonata, Pr�lude, Fugue et Variation and, of course, 'Panis Angelicus' - in enthralling performances by musicians of the first rank. Running to 16 CDs, the collection includes a CD of transcriptions and arrangements, proving their fascination for a still greater diversity of interpreters than Franck might have imagined. The five CDs of historical recordings - dating back as far as 1907 - testify to the continuing growth of his reputation after his death in 1890, and to the vibrant performing tradition engendered by his genius.

Cellist Edgar Moreau, with the WDR Sinfonieorchester and conductor Andris Poga, performs two concertante works from the mid-20th century: Mieczyslaw Weinberg's Concerto in C minor (1956), and Henri Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain... (1970). Both were premiered by the great Mstislav Rostropovich, which creates a special link with Moreau: in 2014 in Paris, he won the Young Soloist Prize in the Rostropovich Cello Competition. In recent years, interest has grown in the music of the Polish-born Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, who was mentored by Shostakovich. The title Tout un monde lointain... evokes a distant world, and Dutilleux's five-movement work does indeed take us to a very different place from Weinberg's, drawing inspiration from the sensuous poems of Charles Baudelaire. Praising Edgar Moreau's last Erato album, Transmission, Gramophone wrote: "His tone is beautiful, his phrasing rapt, and the intensity of his delivery is magnified in the immediacy of his presence in the sound picture."

The figure of prodigiously gifted violinist Nicola Matteis looms large in this program featuring composers active in Restoration England. Transplanted from his native Italy to London, he was one of a host of artists and performers from across Europe who flocked to the city and made a crucial impact on the country's musical culture. The artistry of Alice Julien-Laferrière and the members of the ensemble Ground Floor, demonstrates that this sumptuous and sonically seductive repertoire from the middle of the 17th century can truly hold it's own against the work of later masters.

Classical Music