Quatuor Ébène: Fiction

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these guys obviously swing and rock in their bones, with none of the embarrassingly trammelled, self-conscious posturing that often characterises the efforts of classically trained musicians... — BBC Music Magazine, December 2010, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 25th Oct 2010
Catalogue No: 6286680
Label: Erato
Length: 78 minutes

Fred Wise, Milton Leeds, Nicholas Roubanis, SK Russell: Misirlou (from "Pulp Fiction")

Work length3:07

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Allan Roberts: Amado mío, Song (from "Gilda")

Work length4:28

$1.30

$1.70

Luz Casal (vocals), Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2010-04-16
Recording Venue: 16 April 2010. Studio de la Grande Armée, Paris

Eden Ahbez: Nature Boy (from "Moulin Rouge")

Work length3:32

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Come Together

Work length3:05

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Bradford Mehldau: Unrequited

Work length6:02

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Bob Telson: Introduction to Calling You

Work length2:35

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Bob Telson: Calling You

Work length6:22

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Jobim: Corcovado

Work length3:22

$1.30

$1.70

Stacey Kent (vocals), Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Don Grolnick: Nothing Personal

Work length6:45

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Shorter: Footprints

Work length8:46

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

James Shelton: Lilac Wine

Work length4:44

$1.30

$1.70

Fanny Ardant (vocals), Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Chaplin, C: Smile from 'Modern Times'

Work length5:35

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Franck Churchill: Some Day My Prince Will Come (from Disney's "Snow White")

Work length3:49

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Arlen: Over the Rainbow

Work length6:46

$1.30

$1.70

Natalie Dessay (soprano), Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

David Holmes: 7-29-04 the Day Of (from "Ocean's Twelve")

Work length4:41

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

Bruce Springsteen: Streets of Philadelphia, Song (from "Philadelphia")

Work length5:39

$1.30

$1.70

Quatuor Ebène (string quartet), Richard Héry (drums)
Recorded: 2009-12-05
Recording Venue: 5-22 December 2009. Vulcania, Saint-Ours les Roches.

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About

Described by the New York Times as “a string quartet that can easily morph into a jazz band” the Ebène Quartet - Ensemble of the Year at the Midem Awards 2010 – presents a programme of 16 pop and jazz tracks, with guest appearances from a quartet of female stars: soprano Natalie Dessay, jazz singer Stacey Kent, film icon Fanny Ardant and Spanish pop star Luz Casal.

The Ebène’s first Virgin Classics CD, quartets by Debussy, Ravel and Fauré, was Gramophone’s 2009 Record of the Year, also winning Germany’s Echo Klassik Award 2009, Belgium’s Prix Caecilia 2009 and a French Victoire de la Musique 2010, but this new collection, Fiction, sees them setting their special stamp on numbers from the pop and jazz repertoire.

“In everything we have been willing to do musically –- during all that time spent practising Haydn, Beethoven or Bartók –- there has always been a concealed dream of improvising and creating a new approach to playing string quartet,” confess the members of the multi-award-winning Ebène Quartet. This album brings that dream out into the open.

Its 16 tracks embrace figures as diverse as Charlie Chaplin, Bruce Springsteen, Chick Corea, Harold Arlen, Wayne Shorter, Lennon & McCartney, Brad Mehldau and, in the title track, Nicholas Roubanis, composer of the main theme to Quentin Tarantino’s career-defining film, Pulp Fiction. Guest appearances are made by Virgin Classics’ resident diva Natalie Dessay, American jazz singer Stacey Kent, iconic French actress Fanny Ardant (who proved a sexy chanteuse in the 2002 movie Huit femmes), Spanish pop star Luz Casal and drummer Richard Héry. The quartet’s members even do some singing themselves, with viola-player Mathieu Herzog taking the vocal lead in Springsteen’s ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and all four performing a cappella in their rendition (en français) of ‘Someday my prince will come,” from Walt Disney’s Snow White – which has formed a surprise encore in such august venues as London’s Wigmore Hall.

Pierre Colombet, the quartet’s leader, explains that: “As an ensemble we try to be as broad in our repertoire choices as possible. Genres like pop and jazz are often overlooked by the classical world because classical music is so intelligent, but when other musical genres are played really well they can also reveal treasures. This is why it is important for us to play jazz and other styles of music for a classical audience – because it introduces them to something new; and equally jazz and pop audiences can discover that classical instruments are capable of different sounds. Our jazz-playing also helps to inform our classical performance. It enables us to look at the score from a different perspective and to see classical music as a kind of improvisation. We like to be as free as possible in our performance and for every concert to be slightly different.”

Reviews

December 2010

these guys obviously swing and rock in their bones, with none of the embarrassingly trammelled, self-conscious posturing that often characterises the efforts of classically trained musicians to go native...The string playing itself is teeming with natural flair and intuitive understanding of jazz and popular idioms

2nd November 2010

Many crossover attempts would have been best kept to the four walls of the musicians' own homes. That is not the case for Quatuor Ébène's Fiction...a triumph of originality and verve...Only a very few ensembles could pull off an album like this, so one can only hope that only a very few will try.

November 2010

Ebène possess that rare gift of drawing in the listener, from the moment the coruscating theme from Pulp Fiction scrapes across the speakers...eclecticism is never allowed to defuse the essential musicality of each performance. Indeed everything Ebène play is suffused with a "classical" sensibility, providing the recording with real substance and strength.

22nd October 2010

Quatuor Ebène seem the string quartet most likely to take on the mantle of the Kronos Quartet, not least for their ability to accommodate jazz and pop influences...Fiction is built on their tradition of encoring with dynamic chamber arrangements of such material...cellist Raphaél Merlin excels with his jazz bass virtuosity on "Nature Boy" and Wayne Shorter's "Footprints".

The Independent on Sunday 24th October 2010

Fanny Ardent's performance of "Lilac Wine" has a haunting slovenliness.

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Quatuor Ébène: Fiction

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