Like Chopin before him, and even more closely Scriabin, Rachmaninoff yielded to the temptation of writing his 24 Preludes, assembling this emblematic number in three stages. It began with a youthful work: the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor. From this root, music deeply anchored in Russian soil, imbued with the Slavic soul to which the composer, later exiled, would remain forever attached, there would spring, a decade later, the Opus 23 set, followed seven years on by Opus 32. These Preludes are like images in an album that Jean-Baptiste Fonlupt invites us to leaf through, sonic paintings whose authentic colours of memory he poetically restores. Far from his native land, which he left for good, Rachmaninoff would never write this way again.

As a Japanese cellist, Michiaki Ueno wishes to introduce the world to the remarkable body of music composed in his homeland. At first glance, this might seem like a conventional statement - something anyone might say. Yet, when we consider his background, the words take on a different weight. Born in Paraguay (1995) and raised in Spain during his early years, Michiaki Ueno was captivated at the age of four by a video of Yo-Yo Ma. He received his first cello as a Christmas gift when he was five - marking the beginning of his musical journey. For someone like Ueno, Japan was both his homeland and a distant, unfamiliar place. "I never really thought deeply about Japanese culture," he reflects. "When Europeans spoke kindly about Japan, I was embarrassed to realize how little I actually knew." As he matured, Ueno found himself increasingly compelled to confront and contemplate his cultural identity. Unlike those who grow up immersed in Japan and take it's environment for granted, Ueno approached it as something external something to be consciously examined, understood, and deliberately chosen. It is perhaps through the very act of performing works by Japanese composers that he engages in this thoughtful process of selection.

A unique achievement in Jean-Philippe Collard's discography, this piano programme devoted to Busoni's transcriptions of Bach's organ works is the result of a deep desire and represents a great accomplishment. Jean-Philippe Collard has been driven by three objectives : to immerse himself in Bach's organ music, to which he has always been attached; to reconnect this passion back to a youth nourished by the great sacred works of the Cantor; and to pay tribute to his musician father, who instilled this culture in him and continues to inspire him today. There is also the ambition of creating an innovative project, outside of the repertoires that have established his talent, following some sixty recordings, and at the height of an artistic career that calls for a form of synthesis, not of his career, but of a family history with the piano, of which Bach seems to him to be the greatest common denominator. The accomplishment is therefore multifaceted. Firstly, it is a sound that fully satisfies the performer, whose memories of organ works are enhanced by the breadth they acquire on the piano thanks to Busoni. It also embodies the very idea of recording itself, to which this extraordinary pianistic material gives, more than anything else, it's justification, according to Jean-Philippe Collard. For him, it is still a matter of perfecting the pianistic gesture, through an almost physiological notion of harmony between the writing and the music that is etched into the hand. Finally, it is the pianistic skill that this programme displays, serving the pleasure of a sound craftsman who feels that he has come full circle. What more could one ask for, he ponders. Borrowing from organ terminology, the expression 'full organ' here symbolically expresses the notion of plenitude and the magnitude of a total pianistic undertaking.

Are 'hits' exclusively associated with modern pop music? Popular successes have roots much deeper in the history of music, spanning various genres and contexts, including music created and shared in private settings, such as homes, as well as in street performances. Certain compositions' extraordinary popularity is attested by widely distributed, copied, and repeatedly republished scores. The innumerable arrangements for other instruments also attest to the extent of the phenomenon. Following the success of their 2002 album Dvorak (LDV101), and once again in association with the Czech instrumental arranger Jiri Kabat, the Talich Quartet invites us to explore Mitteleuropa's folk repertoire. An invitation to dance. Irresistible!

Can we go back a hundred years in time? Pianist Florian Noack's new album pushes back the gates of time to rediscover the lifeblood of the Roaring Twenties, which saw twentieth-century music trace a path between partying and war. During the 1920s, Berlin and Paris were awash with jazz, Dada and cabaret, rocked by the liberating music come from America. The arts truly roared between the two world wars, trying to forget the first and stifle their anxieties over the inevitable second. This is the bold journey through time offered by Florian Noack, a musical odyssey through his own transcriptions of Fats Waller, Gershwin and Kurt Weill, voluble and refined arrangements that alternate with original gems by Francis Poulenc, Erwin Schulhoff and Clement Doucet. An album filled with charm and virtuoso acrobatics that finds the poetry of those years of upheaval in the joy and radiance of their music.

Ayant choisi de se referer � Ravel pour le nom de leur ensemble, il etait tout naturel que le compositeur francais figure au programme de leur premier enregistrement. Les musiciens du Trio Pantoum entendent bien, pour autant, ne pas s'enfermer dans une seule esthetique, mais se laisser guider par leur curiosite et explorer des repertoires aussi varies que contrastes. Ainsi, pour leurs debuts discographiques, temoignent-ils de multiples accents, associant leur partition fetiche � celles d'un romantique russe quelque peu oublie et de l'une des nouvelles figures de la musique tcheque.

Dazzling as the Queen of the Night, deeply moving in Lucia di Lammermoor and La Sonnambula, Natalie Dessay also made her mark on the operatic stage in the roles of Olympia, Manon, Musetta and Cleopatra. After training at the Atelier Lyrique de l'Opera National de Paris and pursuing an international operatic career, Natalie Dessay decided to devote herself to spoken theatre, chansons and the song repertory. The duo she formed in 2011 with her artistic partner Philippe Cassard has given one hundred and thirty-five performances around the world, completely reinventing the song recital as a unique moment of expression, embodiment and shared emotion. Ten years after her last appearance at the Opera Bastille in La Fille du regiment, she has chosen to give her farewell performance on the stage of the Palais Garnier on 31 March 2025. This is the last album from this legendary duo, a fitting way to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of one of the greatest sopranos of her generation.

Is there a more singular composer than Alexander Nikolayevich Skrjabin (1872-1915)? Light years away from those of his Russian contemporaries, his original trajectory is that of an incandescent comet in the musical firmament of his time, whose thousands of lumens are suddenly extinguished at it's zenith... all because of the ridiculous insect bite to which he succumbed. An exalted Icarus, captivated by the infinite and yearning for mystical ecstasy, traces his first steps within the legacy of Fryderyck Chopin (1810-1849). His youthful works, bearing in their refined lines the seeds of his boundless creativity, find under Clement Lefebvre's touch an expressive power and a poetic motion of rare elegance.

The unsuspected summits of virtuosity Playing fast and loud... Letting the rapidity of your fingers go to your head... Is this really the definition of virtuosity? Virtuosity has it's origins in 'virtue'; a set of moral qualities, before evolving into something purely technical. By choosing works by Brahms, Mozart, and Liszt, Michel Dalberto will take us on the lengthy journey towards an increased understanding of these pieces. The difficulty of performing them is just one of the ways in which the texts take on their full meaning. So that the scores can reveal the full genius of their creator. Their humanity.

Her intensive frequentation of the works of Liszt has nurtured her sense of narrative and her talent as a colourist. Beatrice Berrut knows how to turn her piano into a veritable orchestra, to mould the sound material, to create profoundly poetic atmospheres and transport us into a dreamlike world. For this musician, who grew up surrounded by nature, has kept her childlike soul and developed an imaginary universe populated by fantastical characters straight out of fairytale, though she does not hesitate to shake up it's codes. Deftly handling the arts of transcription and composition, she tells us these stories in her own way, embracing sensuous delight, frissons and chaos. The magic of fairy tales mingles with the stuff of dreams in this programme, by turns flamboyant and poetic, it's colours alternating between glitter and gentleness. While it begins with excerpts from the great ballet repertoire, it ends with well-known themes from the movie classics The Sword in the Stone and Harry Potter.

A trumpet-tuba duo: what an unusual idea! At the height of the pandemic, the brothers Thomas and Romain Leleu came up with the notion of creating a unique ensemble. While virtuosity (whose Latin origin in the word virtus, at once 'strength' and 'virtue', should never be forgotten) was a given for the two musicians, who play with an astonishing rapport, they are even more fascinated by the search for the appropriate sound world for the newly minted pieces they perform. An opportunity to meet two illusionists.

Her curiosity, her thirst for discovery and her audacity have led her to cultivate eclecticism, to follow paths less travelled and to take us to places where we might not have expected her to go. Deeply committed to the process of creating new music, she has also developed a passion for the minimalist movement and a notable penchant for music stripped down to extreme starkness. From her many immersions in often hypnotic sound worlds, Vanessa Wagner has emerged a different person, freer and more willing to reveal herself. And so it is that today she offers us what is probably her most personal recording, a programme she developed over two long years, constructing an imaginary, fantasised narrative based on miniatures by Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius and Glinka. The pianist becomes the author and narrator of a story of shadows and light.

An organist at the pinnacle of his achievement. With superb virtuosity and most fluent playing, André Isoir proposes a subtle, fervent, and very spiritual interpretation, free to the point of sounding almost like improvisation. His expression is fervent, and his instrumental performance infinitely refined, but also narrative and full of contrast.

For his first CD with La Dolce Volta, Olivier Latry has chosen a programme devoted to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. This recording, made on the massive Cavaille-Coll organ of Notre-Dame de Paris, of which he is titular organist, raises a number of fascinating questions. 'My approach highlights several paradoxes: the notion of performing these key works of Protestantism in one of the most emblematic centres of Catholicism, first of all, but also of playing them on an instrument that is, to say the least, far removed from the Baroque and Classical style of organ building. It's quite true, all of this raises questions. 'However, the most important question remains, in my opinion, that of authenticity in music. I must confess that this concept often seems to me to be a decoy... Playing Bach in this context therefore implies finding a new balance in order to preserve the spirit and letter of music. One cannot be divorced from the other. 'Every performer plays with the instruments of his or her time, and the instrument I have here at Notre-Dame is an outstanding one. One cannot and must not fight against the past, but on the contrary assimilate it, the better to derive inspiration from it and then find one's personal path. We shouldn't really be talking about authenticity at all, but, more soberly, about sincerity.'

Violinist Eva Zavaro pays heartfelt tribute to her two homelands, France and Poland, in a programme of works by Gabriel Faure and Karol Szymanowski. It's guiding thread is night, a source of inspiration to both composers, depicted in pieces that are sometimes virtuosic and impetuous, sometimes lyrical and dreamy under Eva's intense bow. She is accompanied by her longstanding musical partner, the pianist Clement Lefebvre, in this nocturnal journey which marks her first recording for La Dolce Volta.