Musique Calibre

George Enescu was first and foremost one of the great violinists of his day, but he was also a brilliant pianist, admired by pianist colleagues of the calibre of Alfred Cortot, who stated that Enescu had a better piano technique than Cortot himself. And it is obvious that some of this music puts the pianist to severe test. The music is also extremely diversified.

This recording brings together four of Chausson's chamber works from different periods of his short life. His youthful Piano Trio and the Andante and Allegro date from April 1881; the Pièce for cello and piano—one of his last compositions—from 1897. Throughout his life the composer favoured vocal and chamber music. He wrote the Andante and Allegro (which is much more adventurous than its simple title implies) while preparing for the Prix de Rome. It was followed by the admirable and passionate Piano Trio in G minor, a work of an altogether different calibre and hue.

'Marvellously played … superlative … performances of a calibre I do not recall ever hearing before. Strongly to be recommended to serious listeners of any persuasion'

(Gramophone)

“Chanson contre raison” (“Song against Reason”) Is the title of a French love song dating back to the days of Guillaume de Machaut. It appeared so symbolic to me that I could not resist the temptation of starting some rumours. However, this motto also entails commitment and rules out every possibility of ‘science-oriented’ rationality. This piece is in fact a kind of ‘Mephisto waltz’, marked by the appropriate compositional consequences. One of the purely instrumental aspects, too, is quite remarkable : two thirds of the oeuvre are played Scordatura (H1 instead of C). This fundamentally changes the ……..

Gretry's "Richard Coeur De Lion" (1784), a rousing tale about the rescue of the crusader king Richard the Lionheart by his faithful troubadour Blondel, is a minor masterpiece, the greatest French opera comique of the Ancien Regime. Gretry wasn't an eighteenth century composer of the calibre of Mozart, Rameau or his contemporary Gluck, but his music seduced audiences with its charm and tunefulness and in this opera he provided a great deal more. Blondel's stirring aria of loyalty to his king, "O Richard, oh mon roi", was so powerful it was used as an anthem by the royalists in the 1790s and promptly banned by the revolutionary authorities.

Dan Marmorstein, born in the USA (New Jersey) in 1954, is a musician of a broad and manifold calibre, achieved through studies mainly at prestigeful American Schools (New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Mannes College of Music) followed up in Europe (Sweelinck Conservatorium in Amsterdam). Marmorsteins musical experience has also been achieved through studying and practising improvisation, which forms an essential point in his mucisal universe.