Gabriel Urbain Fauré

Song Recital

Rencontres

Mélodies Françaises

This CD presents a collection of French art songs – mélodies - covering a wide range of emotional and stylistic content from Fauré to Ibert. The French declamatory style emphasizes the text rather than the melody, but it is the piano part where the beauty of the music can shine through, both in the rich textures employed and in the special harmonies. This is particularly evident in the songs by Henri Duparc. The three songs by Ravel were his last works. Carlo Colombara has been a regular guest at the leading opera houses in Italy and abroad. He has worked with the most renowned conductors, such as Sir Colin Davis, Carlo Maria Giulini, Vladimir Jurowski, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Sir Georg Solti. Critics in Italy and abroad have praised his stylistic versatility and the dark timbre and the colourful diversity of Colombara’s voice makes him one of the most sought-after basses of our time.

Classic Branford Marsalis

World-renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis has always been a man of numerous musical interests. The three-time Grammy Award-winner, known for his innovative spirit and broad musical scope, is equally at home on the stages of the world’s greatest jazz clubs as major concert halls. It is the latter platform which inspires Classic Branford Marsalis; a fascinating and diverse collection of his best-loved classical tracks, collected from his previous recordings.

Poulenc, Faure & Ravel - Violin Sonatas

French chamber music from the time of the Third Republic is remarkable for its tremendous stylistic variety, revealing, as it does, not only Neoclassical elements but also unexpected rhythms, the sort of local colour associated with folk music and, last but not least, typically French melodies typified by their elegance and songlike character.A classic example of this style is Fauré's Violin Sonata, first performed in 1877, inspired by the Belgian violinist Hubert Léonard and now at the very heart of the new CD that Arabella Steinbacher has recorded with the pianist Robert Kulek.Written half a century later, Ravel's Violin Sonata not only places considerable technical demands on its performers, it also reflects the influence of jazz, an influence explored by the two performers with audible delight in imitating plucked instruments and blue notes.The dizzying energy generated by Steinbacher and Kulek in Ravel's Tzigane needs to be heard to be believed.This homogeneous and yet varied programme opens with a piece that may also be regarded as an epilogue to this chapter from the history of French music: Francis Poulenc's Violin Sonata was written in the 1940s in memory of Federico García Lorca and is a compact work in terms of its expressive and compositional density. Arabella Steinbacher and Robert Kulek bring to it all the necessary shades and nuances.

Fauré - Cello Sonatas Nos. 1 & 2

Fauré’s two cello sonatas are compact, beautifully written works whose musical language, with its many subtle changes of tonality and gift for melody, has been described as conveying ‘the power of tranquil thought’. Written in the summer of 1917, during the First World War, the neglected First Sonata begins with a troubled Allegro, followed by an eloquent Andante and a sparkling Finale. The C minor Andante of the Second Sonata has its origin in a Chant funèbre commissioned for the celebration in May 1921 of the centenary of the death of Napoleon. This recital also includes an arrangement of the ever-popular song Après un rêve, as well as the virtuosic Papillon.

Barbara Bonney, Jennifer Larmore & Thomas Hampson

Libera - New Dawn

This album features both classical tracks and pop arrangements, such as Enya’s Orinoco Flow and Bach’s Air on a G string; the disc also includes a track penned by Brian Wilson called ‘Love and Mercy’. This is the song Libera performed to a star-studded audience in Washington DC before Christmas at the Kennedy Centre Honours, an audience which included President Bush, Robert De Niro, Cameron Diaz and Brian Wilson himself. The talented singers of Libera come from a variety of different schools and backgrounds in London and join together at a church in South London where they rehearse and perform for many hours each week. The youngest is seven and the oldest members are fourteen.

Fauré - Requiem

Recorded at the 2007 Mostly Mozart Festival at London’s Barbican Hall, this disc reflects the unique live experience of a concert performance that captivated its audience.

Grainger - Transcriptions for Wind Band

The eccentric Percy Grainger was well-known for his musical arrangements which ranged from works by other composers as well as arrangements of his own original and folk music settings. These arrangements form a body of work which is perhaps unique in musical history. Most of the works on this CD are taken from a series Grainger named Chosen Gems for Winds. Grainger had a musical mind of unusual breadth and vision, with interests spanning the ages from mediaeval music to the latest twentieth century developments and had the vision to see this context of the wind orchestra setting. It is likely that enlisting in the American Army as a bandsman at the outbreak of World War I, cemented his interest in wind band music, along with an awareness of Stokowski’s Bach transcriptions.