Guilmant

Adriano Falcionis recordings on Brilliant Classics of a diverse repertoire, from Couperin to Bruhns to Franck, reveal an uncommonly versatile artist, and one who relishes the colouristic possibilities of each particular instrument at hand: he has recorded the complete sonatas of Alexandre Guilmant on a richly caparisoned, eminently suitable four-manual organ from 1897 by Carlo Vegezzi-Bossi, who was one of the foremost Italian builders around the turn of the last century.

Soprano Sandrine Piau has been known mostly as a Baroque specialist, but she has recorded several albums of 19th century French mélodies with spectacular results. Si j'ai aimé (the title comes from one of three songs by the little-known Théodore Dubois) will be very hard for her to outdo. The list of attractions is very long and begins with the repertory. There are some familiar pieces here, such as the opening pair of songs by Saint-Saëns, but many of the composers – Dubois, Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant – are rarely performed, at least outside France, and all the songs here are top-notch.

Remus Henning plays classical and baroque pieces on the two organs of the Protestant parish church in Heltau / Transylvania.

We bring to your attention the compilation "Organ Spectacular" by various composers Bonnet, Dupré, Guilmant, Lovelock, Poulenc and various performers. Enjoy beautiful music in a combination of organ and symphonic orchestra.

Modern audiences sometimes associate musicmaking from the Romantic era with extreme rubato, impetuousness of spirit, and a calculated disregard for the fidelity of the text. Although this certainly existed, these characteristics were by no means universally employed. In fact, many Romantic musicians strove to achieve clarity in their performances. “Toujours clair, I have heard him (Guilmant) exclaim a hundred times…” his student Charles Galloway reported in The Etude magazine in January 1921.

Louis Vierne - La Musique de Chambre Intégrale - The Chamber Music Complete Recording (1993) {2CD Set Timpani 2C2019}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 597 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 370 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 78 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1993 Timpani | 2C2019
Classical / Chamber Music / Early 20th Century / Post-Romantic

Born blind, Vierne partially regained sight at age six. Obvious talent was rewarded with piano and solfège studies, to which were added harmony, violin, and a general course when he entered the Institution National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris in 1880. There he was befriended by César Franck who, from 1886, gave him private tuition in harmony while including Vierne in his organ class at the Paris Conservatoire. The lessons of the master were not lost on him – Franck possessed perhaps the richest harmonic palette in Western music and Vierne effortlessly absorbed many of its features. Vierne entered the Conservatoire as a full-time student in 1890. Franck died in November, succeeded by Charles-Marie Widor as professor of organ.

Sandrine Piau’s first recital for the ALPHA Label, with Susan Manoff (Chimères – Alpha 397), proved an enormous hit (Diapason d’Or of the year, Choc of the year, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice). Her new project is a recital with orchestra celebrating French song of the period when it moved from the private salon to the concert hall. Planned in partnership with the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this programme evokes anticipation, desire, pleasure, memory, in short all the vagaries of love experienced by a romantic heroine… To verses of the poets Hugo, Lamartine, Gautier, and Verlaine, Sandrine Piau has selected song settings by Saint-Saëns (L’attente, Papillons), Massenet (Extase, Aimons-nous), and Vierne, as well as by the rarely-heard Dubois, Guilmant, and Bordes…