Nicolas Castin

Germaine Tailleferre is best known for being the only female member of the French group of composers known as Les Six, and her stylish combination of neo-Classicism with a ready wit and energy can be compared to Poulenc and Milhaud. From the captivating Romance written while still a student, to her sparkling music for the 1937 Paris international exhibition, all of these pieces show Tailleferre as being very much at the heart of the contemporary French musical scene. This recording, described by the composer’s granddaughter as being ‘as though Tailleferre herself was perfoming these works’, is the first of three volumes presenting the complete piano music played by Nicolas Horvath.

Forty years have passed since Gidon Kremer created a little musical oasis in the Austrian town of Lockenhaus in 1981. The violinist’s open-minded attitude has left its mark on this event, which has become a must in the concert calendar, and the cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, who took up the torch in 2012, continues the same philosophy. For this fortieth anniversary, he has decided to call on composers who have come to Lockenhaus or had works performed there in the past ten years. Hence the programme contains two premieres – the cello concertos of Raphaël Merlin and Helena Winkelman – but also short pieces by Erkki-Sven Tüür, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Lera Auerbach, Patkop, Maja Ratkje, Matan Porat, Kurt Schwertsik and Johannes Fischer. Musical postcards that celebrate the anniversary while foreshadowing the next forty years!

The thirteen sonatas on this première recording represent the complete music for solo piano by the Parisian keyboardist and composer ANNE-LOUISE BRILLON DE JOUY, a musician much celebrated in her day and greatly admired by Boccherini. Introducing technical innovations more usually associated with Czerny and Liszt, these sonatas reflect a gloriously rich musical environment, incorporating and transforming elements from music of the time with great imagination and wit, and showing us that Madame Brillon's glittering salon, though private, was by no means isolated.

Nicolas Lebègue, the principal organist of King Louis XIV from 1678 until his death in 1702, represents the first state of perfection for the French organ. Alternating great virtuoso pieces worthy of the pomp of Versailles, inspired Noëls and poetic elevations, these Vêpres de Noël (Christmas Vespers) showcase the traditional alternation of vocal pieces, as practised by nuns in Paris, Port-Royal or the Filles-Dieu who attended to prisoners sentenced to death: Lebègue’s motets for single voice, and the plain-chant composed by Nivers for use in Paris. All the atmosphere of this “French-style” nativity is recreated with generosity and beauty under the direction of Nicolas Bucher, on the keys of the Great Organ of the Chapelle Royale.

One hundred tapes. Recorded by Jean Vapeur on the now legendary Nagra IV S tape recorder. A box full of the original sound recordings for Step Across the Border, the film Werner Penzel and I travelled around the world to make in 1988-1989 with musician Fred Frith. Just before the collapse of Socialism and the digital take-over of the world. Twenty minutes on every tape. That is, thirty-three hours of sound material. In the end, only ninety minutes of it are in the film. The rest of the recordings have been slumbering away in an old crate, and trailed along on our every studio move, surviving icy winters and even a flood in our archive vault. Now and again I need to clean the tape debris off the Nagra with a brush. Little piles of magnetic dust. But the sounds are still there! Wear debris, a symbol of elapsed time.

Internationally respected musicians Daniel Palmizio (viola) and Nicolas van Poucke (piano) join forces in a double-album featuring Bach's complete gamba sonatas and Brahms two clarinet sonatas. Palmizio (recently described as a player of 'instrumental mastery' characterized by 'unselfconscious refinement') and Van Poucke ('a truly poetic musician') met at a festival in Zeeland, The Netherlands and have since worked together for several years. This album is the fruit of a deep friendship and shared love for music. Their approach to the music of both Bach and Brahms is equally steeped in tradition of the virtuosos of the golden era as it is forward looking and original. On a 17th century Testore (equipped with open gut strings) and a modern Steinway, Palmizio and Van Poucke, uncompromising in expressive intensity and counter-punctual clarity, shine a new bright light on sonatas by Bach and Brahms.

During the 2010s, Sebastian Fagerlund focused on a series of orchestral compositions and concertos, making one single excursion into vocal music: the opera Höstsonaten (Autumn Sonata, 2017). One of his most important works, the opera has influenced his subsequent music, with an increase of long melodic lines alongside his signature rhythmic drive and energy. Dedicated to Nicolas Altstaedt, Fagerlund’s cello concerto Nomade consists of six movements played without a break – a journey by the cellist-wanderer through various landscapes, moods and events depicted by the orchestra.

Charles-Joseph Van Helmont played a leading role in music in Brussels during the Baroque period. In 1737 he followed in the footsteps of Joseph-Hector Fiocco and composed a cycle of nine Leçons de ténèbres for solo voice and continuo.