This set brings together twelve French-trained pianists performing thirteen French works for piano and orchestra of which ten are premiere recordings. Most of the performers knew the composers and worked with them and four works are performed by their composers. It's hard to imagine a more definitive view of this repertoire, recorded at a time when French pianism still had a very distinctive personal voice, and as such, these recordings, many little known, are a permanent legacy of their time.
Arno Bornkamp, a maestro of the saxophone deeply rooted in the 20th-century French tradition, has been celebrated by audiences for over four decades for his energetic, impassioned interpretations. Now, he presents an album of works by the French composer Henri Sauguet under the GENUIN label. Sauguet's compositions embody a blend of styles from renowned composers like Erik Satie, Darius Milhaud, and Claude Debussy, yet are also marked by a playful spirit that defies any rigid categorization. Unique, vibrant, and above all, poetic—this is the essence of Sauguet's music, delivered with profound sensitivity by Bornkamp and his friends.
Les Ballets Russes: The Collection / SWR Symphony Baden-Baden & Freiburg
SWR
CD
$55.99Sep 09, 2022
Les Ballets Russes was founded by director Sergei Diaghilev in 1909. The company never actually performed in Russia – it made its debut in Paris, and the world was to be its home during its 20 years of existence. With his concepts and commissions, Diaghilev fostered collaborations between the most exciting artists of the time, working with composers such as Stravinsky, Ravel, Prokofiev, Debussy and Satie, artists like Picasso, Kandinsky and Matisse, choreographers including Fokine, Nijinsky and Balanchine, and costume designers such as Coco Chanel. He set in motion a groundbreaking artistic revolution, the echoes of which still reverberate even today. The company’s productions were hugely successful, and Diaghilev most certainly elevated the careers of the artists he commissioned, in the process introducing an international audience to myths and legends and music and design motifs that would otherwise have remained unknown. The significance of music within all this cannot be overestimated – Diaghilev, in fact, came to ballet through his love of music.
SWR CLASSIC has released many of the ballets commissioned or produced by Diaghilev, featuring music by composers from Stravinsky through to Richard Strauss. These are now being re-released as a 10 album boxed set.
This collection of piano works is a journey through the music that represents the years spanning the end of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s. It is a varied itinerary, marked by that typically Parisian ésprit nouveau that captured the most diverse influences: popular music, jazz, exoticism, quotes from popular tradition, songs, circus exhibitions. At that time in fact the divide between cultured and light music came down as new forms of entertainment blossomed, different from those proposed by the great institutions. Cradles of this change were the artistic cabarets, the cafés-concerts, the music halls, the tabarins, but also bistrots, taverns, bookshops, and all the places where intellectuals and artists met. This release offers an historical playlist imbued with the mood of that time, alternating the energy and joie de vivre with more melancholic moods. For the centrality of his figure and the originality of his works, the fruit of a constant process of renewal, Erik Satie is present here with six works which represent several stages in his amazing creative parabola. Dario Müller has performed in concert for important institutions and has collaborated with Dynamic since 1984.
