Amandine Savary / Vineta Sareika MOZART Piano and Violin Sonatas, K. 376, K. 379, K. 526

 PIANO AND VIOLIN SONATAS K. 376 / K. 379 / K. 526

Les Kapsber'girls KAPSBERGER Che Fai Tù?

                                                                   CHE FAI TÙ?

Alain Buet / Quatuor Les Heures du jour SCHUBERT Winterreise

                                                                      WINTERREISE

Annabelle Berthomé-Reynolds / Ivan Donchev BACEWICZ Complete Violin Sonatas

In this debut album with Muso, Annabelle along with her piano partner Bulgarian pianist Ivan Donchev, brought a superb opportunity to discover Grazyna Bacewicz. The double album highlights the Bacewicz sonatas for violin and piano along with solo violin pieces.

Furthermore, this is the very first complete Bacewicz violin sonatas recording in one single boxset! 

Recording at the stunning Penderecki European Music Centre in Luslawice, Poland brought the perfect setting to bring the Polish composers pieces to life.

In addition, the album was selected and broadcast before its official release date by France Musique.

Annabelle loves rare, powerful scores. She has imbued herself with this music. Together with her piano partner Ivan Donchev, they fill this album with vitality and poetry to make the boxset a real discovery, already a classic interpretation.

{oh!} Orkiestra Historyczna / Martyna Pastuszka CONCERTO GROSSO

This CD sketches a portrait of the musical reality of the British Isles during the first half of the 18th century. The eight concerti grossi in this programme have been chosen for the features they possess in common, a primordial position being accorded to the work of Francesco Scarlatti. These are pieces of Italian origin in sonata form; the concerto grosso being the émigré of this programme.
The huge success of the Italian concerto grosso was a response to the necessity of freeing music from a secondary role to which it found itself confined, notably in France with ballet music. Unaffected by the rivalry between French and Italian music that was then raging, the British seemed to be attracted by purely instrumental music; the concerto grosso consequently afforded them a freshness, a boldness, and a hint of unique maestria that held an immediate appeal. Thus it was that the concerto grosso emigrated, as did a number of Italian composers who responded to the emotional needs and the demands of an English ‘market’ that encouraged artistic initiative, promised financial satisfaction, and offered the opportunity of achieving fame.
This was the case with Francesco Scarlatti; born in Palermo, the brother of the celebrated Alessandro, he made almost his whole career in London and Dublin, never, however, really achieving the expected fame. Few of his works have survived beyond the six concerti grossi featured on this CD; two concerto grosso arrangements of sonatas by Geminiani and Corelli complete this programme, the remodeling of one and the same material being very frequent at this time.
You are invited by the young Polish ensemble {oh!} Orkiestra Historyczna, conducted by its first violin Martyna Pastuszka, to journey from Italy to the United Kingdom. Warm, varied sonorities highlight the splendour and expressivity of music that is now lively or dancelike, now gentle, melancholic or meditative. To be discovered!

Eugénie Warnier / Marine Thoreau La Salle / Quatuor Les Heures du jour SOIR - BERCEUSES (MAIS PAS QUE...)

My singing debut was very abrupt, a matter of urgency. I was at the time an intern in gynaecology and obstetrics, and one evening, returning home from attending a performance of Rusalka at the Bastille Opera, I knew I had to sing. Starting to work your voice at the age of 25 is a difficult challenge, I ‘did’ everything as a matter of urgency. I use this word because despite my desire to learn to sing I had above all to do it very quickly, almost immediately on stage. I was able to enter the great temple through the door of early music. Little by little, by learning as I went, I was able to make progress, ‘carve out my space’, often with a certain form of violence, because I had to get ahead as fast as possible. The idea of this disc was born, I believe, a very long time ago and it has been shaped slowly, delicately. It was a journey towards peaceful reassurance, a gentle desire for songs that came from afar, for a melodious childhood, music-loving, melodic, for the love of the beautiful : a text, an air, easy to remember, soothing, reposeful. This ever present desire took form, became reality. With maturity came a self-confidence built up day after day until its first manifestation at Bordeaux Opera where I met an audience that was open-minded, moved, receptive and that had rejuvenated my desire to touch and move... the seed had been planted. (Eugénie Warnier)

Ensemble Stravaganza ABENDMUSIKEN

From the middle of the sixteenth century the reputation for excellence of the composers of Northern Germany was well established. Given dynamism by commercial exchanges thanks to the bustling activity of the port of Hamburg notably, the cities of the Hanseatic League welcomed many foreign workers, their customs inspiring the artistes of the Germanic tradition. At the end of the seventeenth century, Hamburg was a free city sheltered from war, a refuge for artistes and for great fortunes. It was then the most cosmopolitan city in Germany and its population included a great number of merchants, bankers, diplomats and senators, so many men who were rich and who had the time necessary for enjoying music and for encouraging this flourishing art.
As close friends, Johann Adam Reinken, Dietrich Buxtehude – both admired by Bach – and Johann Theile belonged to the circle of contrapuntists of Northern Germany, finding inspiration, however, in the monodic stile nuovo of Italy, championing the idea that music should be at the service of the drama. This musical circle, both professional and friendly, met frequently at Abendmusiken, or musical evenings, created in 1646 in Lübeck by Franz Tunder, organist of the Marienkirche who was to be succeeded by Buxtehude. Organists, great improvisors, the music of the four composers of this programme often comprises suites of short movements in each of which occur identical or related harmonic and melodic elements, characteristics of improvisation and peculiar to the stylus phantasticus, a musical movement dear to composers of this period.

Les Lunaisiens / Arnaud Marzorati LES BALLADES DE MONSIEUR BRASSENS

With the Ballades of Monsieur Brassens, we did not want merely to thumb through the editions of Ballard or the old airs of Philidor. More to the point, we wanted to force the portals of time, as in a comic strip of Moebius, or one of Poe’s short stories. We have cracked the codes while still venerating the tradition of the chansonniers who teamed up in brotherhoods in cabarets such as the famous ‘Trou de la Pomme de Pin’. Our music, for the most part, goes back to the origins, with the theorbo, viola da gamba, tin whistle and bassoon, reminding us that Brassens, just like his companions of the cabarets known as ‘caveaux lyriques’ liked to make music in a convivial way.

Nonetheless, some melodies play with the art of the palimpsest. Between Mallarmé and Genette, we make impressionism burst out over the Middle Ages. In Villon’s Ballade de merci, for example, there is a fine balance between a tenth-century kyrie and a colourful ostinato of Debussy. Or there is Ronsard’s À son âme, that takes a fifteenth-century chanson, Hellas, je pers mes amours and keeps the groove of a ballade of Bob Dylan. 

But do we have to reveal every last little recipe of our cuisine? With these Ballades of Monsieur Brassens we want to offer you a new recording from the Lunaisiens of other major or minor chansons, be they famous or unknown; all, however, echo the extraordinary repertory of Brassens who always wanted to offer his listeners something (to quote Villon) of the “snows of yesteryear”. (Arnaud Marzorati)

I Solisti Aquilani / Daniele Orlando VIVALDI Le Quattro Stagioni

For the first time in recording history we decided to release two versions from this new vision of the Four Seasons. Two different experiences, enjoyable on any system, the start and the end, as the development of human progress, which might leave ample room for interpretation by creating distinctive point of views and perception, and maybe, who knows, a very personal answer to its way out, for a better balance of life. (Michael Seberich)

I was born in Pescara and as a child I loved my sea. I loved to swim, fish, sail. Today that same sea is so polluted that it’s possible only to look at it. I still love it the way one loves a gravely ill family member. 

My daughters will not be able to remember it other than as it is, in agony. They won’t remember its magnificence, they’ve never seen it. 

This interpretation grew from the realization that the Nature described by Antonio Vivaldi is not that which we see before us now. These Seasons live in the desperate distance that exists between the idea of Nature as it was given to us and the bitter vision of Nature as we have contaminated it. 

I wish to thank I Solisti Aquilani, my valiant crew. I thank my wife Masina, the shore from which I sail and to which I return. 

I thank the timeless Music of Antonio Vivaldi, our magnificent sea. (Daniele Orlando)

Amandine Savary BACH Toccatas

Having previously distinguished herself on disc as a chamber music collaborator, the young French pianist Amandine Savary makes her CD solo debut with Bach’s Toccatas. It was a good idea to do so, not only in that the catalog contains relatively few piano versions of all seven works (as opposed to a gazillion-and-one piano Goldberg Variations), but also because Savary plays superbly. 

Savary may not match Angela Hewitt’s refinement of articulation in the fugues or Stepan Simonian’s bravura, yet there’s something to be said for her lighter, more scampering treatment of the G minor’s first upbeat episode (measure 18), or her gentle easing into the D major and E minor Toccatas’ introductions. Her brisk and pliable sweep through the D major’s fugal finale minimizes the music’s tendency to ramble in lesser hands. The F-sharp minor’s slow interlude transpires with lilting delicacy, in contrast to the D minor fugue’s zestful drive. My only quibble is that the C minor’s central fugue slows down slightly as it progresses, with the textures becoming less transparent in turn. That aside, Savary’s inherent musicality and elegance leave a largely positive impression, and her well-regulated Yamaha CFX Concert Grand is vibrantly reproduced. Well worth hearing. (Jed Distler)

Amandine Savary SCHUBERT Impromptus

For more than ten years Amandine Savary has performed in Europe as well as Japan, the USA and Australia, building a substantial reputation as an accomplished and versatile pianist and chamber musician. 

After graduating with Honour from the Caen Conservatory in Normandy, she joined the Royal Academy of Music of London in 2003 to study under Professor Christopher Elton and Alexander Satz. She obtained her Masters Concert Project Degree with distinction and is now an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. 

Amandine Savary is a laureate of the Tillett Trust, the Kirckman Concert Society, the Philip and Dorothy Green Award, the Park Lane Group and the Fondation d’Entreprise Banque Populaire. Her work has been supported by Help Musicians, the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund, Hattori Foundation and the Worshipful Company of Musicians. 

Amandine Savary has played under the baton of Moshe Atzmon, Hilary Devan Watton, Murray Stewart, Augustin Dumay, Jean- Claude Casadesus, Gérard Korsten, Emmanuel Krivine, Pascal Rophé, with orchestras such as the London Mozart Players, the London Pro Orchestra, the EUCO Orchestra, the Orchestre de Bretagne, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, and also very regularly with her partners of the Trio Dali - Jack Liebeck, violin and Christian-Pierre La Marca, cello. 

She has performed in Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Tokyo (Suntory Hall, Tsuda Hall), New York (Kaufmann Hall), London (Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, King’s Place), Paris (Maison de Radio France, Auditorium du Louvre), Brussels (Flagey, Bozar, Royal Palace), Santander (Palacio de Festivales), Dijon (Auditorium), Montpellier (Corum), Osaka (Izumi Hall), Monaco (Opéra Garnier) to name but a few. 

Her discography include Ravel’s and Schubert’s Piano Trios for Fuga Libera; French songs for cello and piano for Sony; Mendelssohn’s Piano Trios for ZigZag Territoires and Bach’s Toccatas for muso. Awards for these recordings include the prestigious Diapason d’Or and Gramophone magazine’s Editor’s Choice amongst many others. Amandine Savary has taught piano and chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music since September 2015. (www.amandinesavary.com)