Laurent Mauvingnier

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard joins forces with the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen for a recording of Bartók’s complete piano concertos. A pianist himself, Bartók imbued his three concertos with multiple aspects of his compositional persona, ranging from complex and innovative (the First) to exuberant (the Second) and serene (the Third). The result is a fascinating slice of his musical life. This all-Bartók release marks the first Pentatone collaboration between Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony, an ensemble he has reshaped through creative performance concepts and expansive new media projects.

At Work, produced by the pianist Laurent de Wilde, it is the communion of all. This alto saxophone incandescent also recalls that jazz is not just a man's. Supported by Paul Lay on piano, Yoni Zelnik on bass and Donald Kontomanou on drums, Géraldine Laurent sign probably his most concise drive but, on arrival, his most personal and most successful. A haven of musicality where his own compositions blend to perfection in those swords named Monk, Mingus or Jobim. Brilliant.

After a magnificent tribute to Thelonious Monk with the same partners a few years ago, Laurent de Wilde returns to us in a trio setting with a repertoire that is entirely his own, except for a theme co-composed with his drummer Donald Kontomanou.

This project showcases a union between two artists expressing their infinite love of the piano after years of joint concerts and international collaboration.

In 1837 Alkan published a series of twelve pieces, Trois études de bravoure or Improvisations, Op. 12, Trois andantes romantiques, Op. 13, Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique, Op. 15 and Trois études de bravoure (Scherzi), Op.16. These twelve piano pieces were issued in four volumes under the general title Douze Caprices. The studies that form the first volume had the earlier title Improvisations dans le style brillant, aptly descriptive. The first of the three, with its leaping octaves and sudden modulations, opens the door to a new world, technically and musically. It is followed by a D flat major Allegretto, initially a gentle contrast, although it increases in intensity, before the wistful ending over a sustained pedal-point.

Two musicians frequently recognized for their passion for hard-edged modern and contemporary music take on the music of modern pioneer Maurice Ravel. The Ravel piano concertos come off as brilliant and sparkling in the hands of Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Pierre Boulez, along with the Cleveland Orchestra. Boulez and the orchestra make Ravel's orchestral writing sparkle in the Concerto for Left Hand, and in the Concerto in G they highlight not only the sassy jazz references, but also the references to Stravinsky, and do it without drawing attention away from the rest of the music.

The 25 Preludes in all major and minor keys, Opus 31, appeared in 1847, designed for piano or organ, or, no doubt, for the instrument that Alkan particularly favoured, the pédalier or pianoforte with pedal-board, for which Schumann and Gounod, among others, also wrote. The Preludes go through all 24 keys, returning to a final Prayer in the affirmative original key of C major. The first set of nine opens meditatively and proceeds in a sequence of keys that moves alternately up a fourth and down a third, to F minor in the second and to D-flat major in the third, Dans le genre ancien, the old style in question being nothing more ancient than Bach, heard through the ears of Mendelssohn. Jewish tradition is at the root of the Prière du soir (“Evening Prayer”), the rejoicing of Psalm 150 and the Cantor’s chant of the Sixth Prelude.

Devienne was a professor of flute at the Conservatory of Music of Paris and bassoonist in the orchestra of the grand opera theatre of Paris in 1796. In these pieces Devienne demonstrates his mastery of gallant conversation with an admirably light touch. In these works it is the bassoon and the violin that shape the musical events. Laurent Lefèvre won the Premier Grand Prix at the Concours International d'Exécution musicale of Geneva. He is the first bassoon soloist in the orchestra of the Opéra national de Paris. He has made solo appearances in many orchestras and festivals in Germany, Swizterland, Argentina and Belgium.

Willi Apel, one of the great twentieth-century experts on harpsichord music, declared: ‘With d’Anglebert, French keyboard music reaches its highest point of Baroque magnificence and fulness. His skill in continuing a melody, contrapuntally interweaving voices, concatenating harmonies by way of suspensions, and always using meaningful figures as ornaments brings to a final culmination and maturity what his teacher, Chambonnières, began . . .’