Funérailles

Piano Sonatas by Chopin (No 2) and Hough (No 4) are the twin peaks of a typically stimulating recital which—as always from Stephen Hough—spans centuries and styles with assurance. How often do Liszt’s ‘Funérailles’ and Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ share the same programme?Life is nothing if not unpredictable.

Piano Sonatas by Chopin (No 2) and Hough (No 4) are the twin peaks of a typically stimulating recital which—as always from Stephen Hough—spans centuries and styles with assurance. How often do Liszt’s ‘Funérailles’ and Gounod’s ‘Ave Maria’ share the same programme?Life is nothing if not unpredictable.

Vladimir Horowitz – The Complete Original Jacket Collection is a 70 CD boxed set featuring most of the recordings of the pianist Vladimir Horowitz. The collection contains recordings from 1928 to his final recording session just four days before his death in 1989.

Much of the richly diverse oeuvre of Albert Roussel (1869-1937) grew from his far-flung travels as a young navy officer. One of the major French composers of his time, he produced music that embraces the exotic colours of so-called Impressionism, the rigour of his training at Vincent d’Indy’s Schola Cantorum, and the questing spirit of Modernism. Containing a number of CD premieres, this wide-ranging edition features such performers as Jean Martinon, Charles Munch and Claire Croiza – all colleagues of the composer, who makes appearances as both conductor and pianist – André Cluytens, Michel Plasson and José van Dam.

Un jeune homme de vingt-trois ans a quitté son pays de façon précipitée. Un homme épuisé y retourne, trente-trois ans plus tard. Le jeune homme est passé de l’étouffante chaleur de Port-au-Prince à l’interminable hiver de Montréal. Du Sud au Nord. De la jeunesse à l’âge mûr. Entre ces deux pôles se trouve coincé le temps pourri de l’exil. …

In my first recording for Le Palais des Dégustateurs I have selected works that are of special meaning for me and that have evolved over time.The Liszt sonata is at the core of my repertoire. It is a work into which I can pour the widest range of deepest emotions. I chose the other Liszt works on the disc to show other facets of his genius as a chronicler of the human condition: the reflection of the Consolations, the harrowing commemoration of the Hungarian revolution of 1848 in the Funérailles, the precious rarity that is the Hymne de la Nuit, and an example of Liszt’s idealistic homages to other composers in his transcription of Schubert’s “Auf dem Wasser zu singen.”I particularly cherish the Chopin preludes and I constantly revisit the extraordinary variety of their characters. The Third Sonata is a work that I first performed as a teenager and whose nobility, grace, and thrill never cease to amaze me. (Ya-Fei Chuang)