François Martin

This recording includes works for the oboe by four French Baroque composers, Jacques-Martin Hotteterre, Michel Pignolet de Montéclair, Francois Courpin, and Marin Marais. Among them Montéclair is a cantata "Pan et Syrinx" (Pan et Syrinx). The story of the faun Pan chasing the nymph Silinks is popular with composers. On the one hand, this is a sad story about love that can never be obtained, and the drama and imagination in it are quite suitable for composers to play; A flute, this "pan flute" can be played with a modern flute (as in Debussy's Syrinx), or with an oboe like Montéclair. The tone of the oboe is not as cold as the flute, but rather warm, elegant and fresh. On the one hand, it is very suitable for depicting the quiet life of nature or the countryside. The sweet memories of a lost love couldn't be more fitting.

Liszt’s predestination for sacred music doubtless stemmed from his childhood, when he had close ties to Catholicism through his father. He went on to compose many works expressing the virtues of various saints, and to those works Martin Haselböck and the Orchester Wiener Akademie are devoting a series of recordings.

It is good to note the present resurgence of interest in Frank Martin on record, and to welcome this premiere recording of the Piano Concerto No. 1 of 1933-4. Martin was already in his early forties by the time he came to write his First Concerto and it bears many of the fingerprints one recognizes from such mature works as the Petite symphonie concertante and the Concerto for seven wind instruments. Gieseking, who gave the first performance with Ansermet and the Suisse Romance, appears not to have given a particularly convincing account of the solo part, but the work …..

Robert Layton @ Gramophone.co.uk

Martin Bonsoir est chauffeur de camion. Il parcourt seul les paysages grandioses du Canada et des États-Unis sans plus les voir. Jusqu'au jour où son camion est immobilisé par la neige dans un bled paumé du Canada. Il y est secouru par une femme seule, plus âgée que lui, Esmé Larivière. Sur un coup de tête, elle demande à Martin de l'emmener avec lui.Le voyage de Martin prend alors une autre tournure. Il se surprend à apprécier les paysages, à prendre le temps de savourer de bons repas…

The starting-point for this unique recital is a true Mozart rarity, the Sonata for bassoon and cello K292 which Mozart wrote in 1775, pairing the bass members of string and wind families not to comic effect but rather demonstrating their expressive versatility and contrasting tone-colors, in the hands of sufficiently practiced performers; the Sonata is accessible by only the most skilled amateur performers such as its original dedicatee, the nobleman, pianist and occasional bassoonist Thaddaus Wolfgang von Dürnitz. The counts considerable musical gifts may be judged from the teenaged Mozarts dedication of the Piano Sonata K284 in the same year: one of the composers first works of absolute genius, notably in the extraordinary landscape of its long theme-and-variation finale.