Laurent Colson

Gabriel Fauré, a key player in the revival of the French school at the end of the 19th century, is distinguished by a rich catalog. Gabriel Fauré's Sonatas for Cello and Piano are masterpieces of chamber music, reflecting a profound and innovative exploration of the expressive capabilities of the cello in duets with the piano. They are distinguished by their harmonic richness and innovative texture, testifying to Fauré's stylistic evolution towards a more complex and nuanced musical language.

Though chamber music is incontestably the least well-known component of his corpus, Camille Saint-Saëns was a master of the genre, leaving us with a large collection of works. We may think of Saint-Saëns as a conservative and very academic composer. And yet, we would be well advised to remember that he was, in fact, a pioneer. Even as a young man, Saint-Saëns delved into chamber music instead of opera, the conventional form for an up-and- coming musician. He composed chamber music throughout his life - through to the final woodwind sonatas in 1921 - restoring luster to the form which, in France, had been all but forgotten.

Pour les connaisseurs, Georges Onslow, né en 1784, est l'un des rares compositeurs pré-romantiques français à s'être consacré à la musique de chambre. Berlioz rendra hommage à Onslow: "Vous savez que depuis la mort de Beethoven, il tient le sceptre de la musique instrumentale" ainsi que Schumann: "On s'est habitué une fois pour toutes à la manière des trois grands maîtres allemands: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, et en toute justice, on a admis parmi eux, Onslow". Intercalé entre les deux sonates de Onslow nous retrouvons le nocturne de Duport.

Although he naturally composed a great deal for the organ, Vierne was also a great symphonist, an outstanding colourist and melodist. A complete musician, he composed about ten works of chamber music, refined and inherited from his romantic masters (Wagner, Widor and Franck mainly). Also an accomplished pianist, he loves to accompany singers and instrumentalists and knows how to subtly marry timbres, as this recording shows.

Gabriel Fauré, a key player in the revival of the French school at the end of the 19th century, is distinguished by a rich catalog. Gabriel Fauré's Sonatas for Cello and Piano are masterpieces of chamber music, reflecting a profound and innovative exploration of the expressive capabilities of the cello in duets with the piano. They are distinguished by their harmonic richness and innovative texture, testifying to Fauré's stylistic evolution towards a more complex and nuanced musical language.

“Him alone did they call the Father of all musicians, to whom the Germans were indebted for enabling them now to bring music to a standard equal to that of the Italians, if not even higher”. So wrote Johann Mattheson in 1740 in praise of Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672), the most revered German musician of his generation. On this CD the ensemble inAlto present works by Schütz himself, but also by some of his students, which show why Schütz was such a good teacher, who handed on his talent to the following generation.