Alpes

Des informations historiques et culturelles, des renseignements pratiques, des descriptions de circuits et une sélection d'adresses pour découvrir les départements de l'Isère et des Hautes-Alpes : la vallée du Vénéon, le massif de Belledonne, le Vercors, le pays du Buëch et le massif du Dévoluy ainsi que le val d'Allos. …

During the 70's, Catherine Ribeiro & Alpes recorded a string of stunning and successful albums, gathering a few plaudits and yearly awards from specialized press, played throughout Europe and even in Latin America and Northern Africa and are now seen as an iconic group of the hippy 70's in France. Their music is rather experimental and hard to define and involves folk, progressive and improvisation. Their use of seldom-seen percuphone and cosmophone (both alpine instruments), their lengthy Poème Non-Epique pieces, Ribeiro's anarchist avant-garde and ecologist lyrics and doomed atmosphere (there is some VdGG feel in their music) made this group a very distinct and very original group that has their own sound…

Born in 1941 and raised on a working-class family, she starts her carreer as an actrice. Her first appearance was in 1963 Jean-Luc Godard's film "Les Carabiniers" where she met Patrice Moullet (acting the principal role). It was in 1967 that Moullet, then interested in music, proposed to compose music for her poetry. They formed the band 2 BIS (soon to be renamed ALPES) and proved the ideal vehicle for Ribeiro's extraordinary voice, on the seven classic albums they produced together. Ahead of a conventional rock format, their music was a unique amalgam of progressive underground, with vast spacey instrumental passages due to Moullet's home-made instruments (percuphone, cosmophone & orgolia), much improvised weirdness and a strong folk influence.

Élisabeth Calandry s'empare avec bonheur de ces contes issus du collectage de Charles Joisten : elle y ajoute ses couleurs et nous fait redécouvrir l'étrange univers des êtres fantastiques des Alpes. Les musiques de Nathalie Berbaum sont variées, les arrangements drôles et si c'est le violon qui montre le chemin, c'est parce que depuis presque deux siècles, il demeure avec la malice la meilleure arme quand on croise le loup? Les bergères, vous les connaissez …

Dvorak had an ambivalent relationship with Classical and Romantic traditions, something that is clearly exemplified in his piano trios. The Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 90 is a daring late work that uses popular moods and freer forms consisting of six Dumky – a melancholic and poetic musical form that draws from the composer inexhaustible melodic creativity. The Piano Trio in F minor, Op. 65 was influenced by the death of the composer’s mother and also by Dvorak having heard Brahms’ Piano Quintet, Op. 34, a work composed in the same key. Cyclic elements and fiery drama permeate the writing. “Individually excellent, they are even more impressive together”, wrote the Gazzetta di Mantova after a concert by the Italian-Swiss Trio des Alpes, thereby describing one of this Trio’s essential qualities: three independent, all-round successful personalities meeting as a trio. What attracts them is the quintessence of chamber music: dialogue, a shared sound and the blending of three instruments into a single whole.