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French ‘lightness’ and ‘charm’? Germanic ‘profundity’ and ‘gravity’?

These words sum up in a nutshell what we are offered by the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Rouen conducted by Oswald Sallaberger for their first collaboration with Zig-Zag Territoires.

On the programme: Gabriel Fauré’s symphonic suite Pelléas et Mélisande; then a selection of his songs in their orchestral versions, performed by Karine Deshayes (Victoire de la Musique for opera singer of the year 2011).

Finally the Siegfried Idyll of Richard Wagner, probably the most delicately poetic of his works, far removed from the grandiosity of his music dramas.

“A little more than ten years ago I discovered the late works of Gabriel Fauré, and particularly the sumptuous cycle La Chanson d’Ève. A decade later, I still traverse with the same pleasure the intensely expressive luxuriance of these songs and their exhilarating harmonic density. La Chanson d’Ève, like Le Jardin clos and the other songs we wished to include in this recording, expresses an extreme refinement capable of going straight to the heart of the matter, sometimes with a disarming simplicity, but invariably underpinned by a flawless structure. They are among the works to which I feel very close today, at once nourished by them and inspired by the urge to share the profound enjoyment they give me. After ten years of complicity with the pianist Hélène Lucas, the time has come to invest our pleasure, our enthusiasm and the end result of all our hard work in a disc which is both a challenge and, above all, an immense source of delight for us.” Karine Deshayes

Like Chopin’s Barcarolles, Fauré’s work shows equal measures of limpidity and gravity, brightness and great depth. Delphine Bardin started playing the piano at the age of five and went on to study piano as a graduate at the Paris Conservatory under Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and chamber music under Christian Ivaldi. In 1997 she won the Clara Haskil prize, one of the most prestigious piano competitions in the world.

Numerous solo engagements followed including invitations from Birmingham, Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Wigmore Hall and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Since then, Delphine Bardin has been travelling the world both as a chamber musician and soloist. She has also formed two duos: one with the cellist Ophélie Gaillard and another with Sarah Louvion, flute soloist with the Frankfurt Opera. She also regularly plays quintet concert programmes with the Benaïm Quartet.

La Bonne Chanson in its version for voice and piano quintet is the musical meeting-point between Karine Deshayes and the artists of the Ensemble Contraste, all great lovers of and specialists in French music. Zig-Zag Territoires has been following Karine Deshayes’s recording career since her first recital disc featuring Fauré’s Le Jardin clos and La Chanson d’Ève, released in September 2009, and continues to accompany the Ensemble Contraste in its development after the release of its CD Café 1930 (Piazzolla) in January 2009.

A reinterpretation of the works of Gabriel Fauré by a new generation of musicians.

Between 1875 and his death in 1924, Fauré produced ten or so compositions that are among the jewels of the French chamber repertoire, written at a time when opera and symphonic music were the predominant genres.

The international artist Eric Le Sage, who is a specialist in this repertoire, continues his exploration of the complete chamber music with piano of Gabriel Fauré, accompanied by a fine team of first-rate artists.This second volume, expertly recorded by Jean-Marc Laisné in the wonderful setting of the MC2 Auditorium in Grenoble, shows extraordinary energy and elegance. The first volume was awarded the highest ratings by the music magazine Classica in December 2011.

Following the successful edition of Schumann’s complete works, Eric Le Sage and Alpha have decided to produce a new series of 5 CDs dedicated to Gabriel Fauré’s complete works for chamber music with piano. This series in general and its first volume in particular, constitute a milestone in Alpha’s development as they are the first of a line devoted to music from the post-Mozart period. Each volume will be placed in the literary context of the time in which it was created through fragments taken from novels, poems or the correspondence of artists. Eric Le Sage will work on this series together with François Salque with whom he shares a great musical affinity. Sound engineer Jean-Marc Laisné (who recorded the integral works of Schumann) will record the pieces in the auditorium of Grenoble, a hall famous for its acoustics. Through the combination of their talents, these men will breathe new life into these well known pieces. There is no doubt this series, just like the recordings of Schumann’s complete works, will become a reference on the classical music scene.

In a genre set by Boccherini and represented in the nineteenth century by the masterpieces of Schumann, Brahms and Franck, Gabriel Fauré composed two scores that were very different from his early romances and the evanescent ‘lullaby of death’ that is the Requiem.

The Piano Quintet op. 89 remains little known, for reasons related to its composition as much as to its history. Regarded by Koechlin as one of Fauré's finest work, it serves as a transition to the composer's final stylistic period.

Opus 115, surprisingly less melancholy than its predecessor, is one of the composer's last productions. In the evening of his life Faure demonstrated his supreme mastery and prodigious creative power, giving French chamber music, which he served so well, one of its finest monuments.

‘Juliette Hurel performs them with technical assurance and a fine sense of style, in which sparing use of vibrato is only one of the positive elements.’ Gramophone

‘Transparency, light, colours, tenderness, melancholy: all these come to mind when I try to pin down what I mean by “French impressions”. With its gentle, rich, sensuous and vivid sound, the flute is for me the perfect instrument for this repertoire. I have long wanted to record the works assembled here in the company of my dear friends. I am delighted to present them to you now.’ Juliette Hurel

For her third recording on Zig-Zag Territoires, Juliette Hurel offers us a journey through the French masterpieces for flute of the first half of the twentieth century, including Poulenc’s Flute Sonata, Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp, Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and Syrinx, and Fauré’s Sicilienne and Berceuse.