Ensemble Des Equilibres / Agnès Pyka / Laurent Wagschal BRAHMS AUJOURD'HUI...

 

BRAHMS AUJOURD'HUI...

Jean-Luc Menet PHILIPPE HERSANT Mnaomai

 

MNAOMAI

 

Les Vents Français MODERNISTE

‘Modern: Designating the most innovative forms of art in a given period, particularly those of the 20th century.’ This definition from the French Larousse dictionary explains the performers’ choice of title – Modernistes – for this new anthology of music for wind instruments: what draws the attention in these works – in different ways at different times and in different fields – are their innovative, progressive and adventurous qualities. Four of the composers featured on this album can legitimately be associated with what is very broadly known as Modernism, referring to the general proliferation of new ideas and new musical aesthetics at the turn of the 20th century and beyond. As for the two works by Philippe Hersant and Thierry Escaich, they call on us to reflect on what modernity means to us today. And, while it is easy to set Modernism in opposition to traditionalism, it is also interesting to distinguish between a composer’s personality and his or her approach to composing.

Quatuor Girard THE STARRY SKY

“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You, you alone will have the stars as no one else has them… […] You, only you, will have stars that can laugh!” (The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

 

If the pieces recorded here owe their existence to the stars, the development of the disc itself is a great meeting of the stars. Perhaps we hear them laughing at the opportunity to travel between neighbouring galaxies…
Our wonderful experience of playing the complete Beethoven’s quartets live in concert, our radiant encounter with Philippe Hersant, whose fourth string quartet we have the honour of premiering on record, our truly enriching residence at the Queen Elisabeth Musical Chapel of Belgium, and the precious relationship that quickly grew with luthier Charles Coquet, leading us to play on a quartet of instruments… these are all lively and significant realities from a moment in our life as quartet musicians which we wanted to bring together in a single story.
The purpose of this recording is not to freeze shooting stars… It seemed important to us, in this fleeting life, to take the time to lift our gaze, because it is the starry skies that we cannot fail to contemplate and thank. (Quatuor Girard)

Mara Dobresco SOLEILS DE NUIT

That which we sense without knowing, what we cannot perceive in the darkness, in the reflections or the dancing glimmers, that which can only be said in music, or can only appear in a dream… This is the subject of the album Soleils de Nuit (“Suns of Night”). It is not an album for insomniacs, made to caress and relax. Rather it is an evening stroll, with the particular listening quality a stroll can elicit, in search of extraordinary (or unheard of) lighting… An eyes-wide-open dream.

Alongside the magnificent nocturnes of Chopin, Grieg, Debussy and Tchaikovsky, this disc aims to present lesser-known compositions, such as the nocturnes of Lipatti and Britten, Enesco’s Carillon nocturne, as well as compositions from our time, by Oscar Strasnoy, Philippe Hersant and Anatol Vieru. The choice to include contemporary compositions – and thus share the project with the composers of today – was important to me. I had the opportunity to collaborate with Oscar Strasnoy, who dedicated the cycle Piano4 to me. The Berceuse on this disc is drawn from the cycle, and I have developed a deep affection for the work. My affinity with the music of Philippe Hersant was immediate. His music speaks to me; when playing it I feel “at home”.

I am especially happy to include the Nocturne in F-sharp minor by Dinu Lipatti, my mentor from the beginning, a great pianist whose compositions are unknown to the general public. This Nocturne, written in 1939, is dedicated to Clara Haskil, who appreciated it enormously and performed it on numerous occasions. This piece had to feature in a program which is a search for light in darkness. I always remember the words he regularly repeated to his students: “Always search for the light higher in other people, and as deeply as possible within yourself.”

I chose to end this dreamy evening stroll with a prodigious composition: a posthumous piece by G. Enesco, drawn from the Pièces impromptues. In it, one hears the bells of northern Romania’s monasteries. The atmosphere is palpable, solemn, pensive, impulsive, and at the very end of the piece, I imagine a farewell gesture, formed by a hand at the edge of the world.

Juliette Hurel / Hélène Couvert DEBUSSY - JOLIVET - MESSIAEN - DUTILLEUX - HERSANT - DUSAPIN - TANGUY - VARESE

This is a CD only a flutist could love: It is heavy on the solo repertoire and comprised entirely of “new” music. Juliette Hurel makes obvious choices such as pairing Syrinx and Densité 21.5 as disc openers, both of which she plays well, though the latter could use a little more vehemence, more force. She also closes the disc with three solo offerings, which is a lot of flute-alone for anyone (save for other flutists) to take in a single listening. Pascal Dusapin’s I Pesci is comprised of three short and sweet movements, and Hurel plays all of them beautifully if not a little to carefully–she seems determined to make every solo sound “pretty” rather than exploring the flute’s more dramatic expressive possibilities. Only when it comes to Phillipe Hersant’s Cinq Miniatures, each of whose five movements is intended to evoke a particular kind of non-Western flute style, does she allow her tone to vary.

The three accompanied works are worth a serious listen. Dutilleux’s 1943 Sonatine is delightfully spry and fiendishly difficult, challenges that Hurel and pianist Helene Couvert attack with frothy élan. Perhaps being spurred on a little by a musical cohort draws a less dark, more focused sound from Hurel. She and Couvert make short work of Jolivet’s furious Chant de Linos but fare not so well on Messiaen’s Merle Noir, where the tone of the two players seems mismatched, as if they are working at cross-purposes. The recording is intimate and focused, allowing the flute to sound beautiful but never shrill. (Classics Today)

La Tempête / Simon-Pierre Bestion THE TEMPEST Inspired by Shakespeare

This debut disc from French artistic collective La Tempête and their director Simon-Pierre Bestion is, at first glance, frankly bizarre. Period instrumental and choral works by Locke and Purcell sit alongside music by Frank Martin and living French composer Thierry Pécou.

Divided into a sequence of quasi-dramatic ‘acts’, the music is designed to capture the ‘plural spirit’ of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, mirroring the play’s narrative ‘without restricting itself to works actually written for the play’. It’s hard to shake the impression that this brilliant group of young musicians just wanted an excuse to perform some of their favourite pieces, but they make such a stylish job of it that it’s easy to get swept up in their wide-ranging enthusiasms.

Most exciting are instrumental interludes by Matthew Locke, whose The Tempest opens the disc, and (according to some rather ponderous booklet-notes) was the inspiration for the project. Bass-anchored and percussion-driven, the playing has a real rhythmic kick to it, insisting upon the dances that are then sublimated and dissolved in song and text-settings of Martin and Pécou.

Choral blend and enunciation are immaculate, at their very best in Martin’s Songs of Ariel – lively with inventive textural gestures, and expressively every bit the equal of Vaughan Williams’s better-known Three Shakespeare Songs. Also interesting is Philippe Hersant’s extended Falling Star – the contemporary choral cousin of Purcell’s verse anthems, many of which also feature here. It’s particularly good to see Let mine eyes run down with tears among the more familiar numbers – a neglected gem of rare intensity, performed here with tremendous poise.

La Tempête’s avowed aim here was to ‘disturb the tranquillity’ of their listeners. While I can’t confess to any lasting disturbance of spirit, these young French mavericks certainly inspired plenty of excitement and no little anticipation with their provocative debut. (Gramophone)