Randal Corsen, Jean Jacques Rojer, Kris Berry Raís (2020)

In 2019, Alexandre and Jean-Jacques Kantorow’s recording of the last three piano concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns earned the highest praise around the world, including a Diapason d’or de l’année, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and top marks and recommendations from the leading German web sites Klassik Heute and Klassik.com. The Kantorows’ orchestra of choice was the Finnish ensemble Tapiola Sinfonietta, and they have now returned to Helsinki to record not only Saint-Saëns’ first two concertos, but all of the remaining works for piano and orchestra.

The focus of Kalevi Aho’s output lies on large-scale orchestral works, and his work-list includes fifteen symphonies to date, composed between 1969 and 2010. Although the Finnish composer is famously lavish as an orchestrator, and often invites rare guests such as the heckelphone into his orchestra, the scores of Aho’s three chamber symphonies are much more economic in scale. But although composed for some twenty strings in all, and of more modest durations than for instance the 50-minute Eighth Symphony for organ and orchestra, they bear eloquent proof of the composer’s aim of exploiting to the full the expressive capabilities of a string orchestra.

How did you develop a taste for both music and piano? Jean-Jacques Bedikian: Simply in the family context. My father liked to gather at home friends or relatives who were amateur musicians, and he enjoyed these improvised concerts which took a large part of traditional, popular, or film music, as well as the classical repertoire. I would stay up as late as possible to listen, I would even wake back up to do so, and this is how the first contact with music took place, and also the awakening of the desire to get my hands on the piano keys. In fact, when I heard a piece of music that moved me, I would try to play it, without having taken any lessons, to replicate first the melody, then a semblance of a harmonic framework. So I had the desire to learn the piano, which is why I was introduced to my first teacher.

Recorded in concert during his 2002 tour in support of his A L'Envers album, Jean-Jacques Goldman's live backing outfit showed themselves capable of many surprises, pulling out nuggets from their catalog as well as showcasing the latest album's tracks. As is usual with live French offerings, the audience plays a prime role in the proceedings on Un Tour Ensemble…

L'événement de la rentrée. En effet, c'est le premier album solo de Jean-Jacques Goldman depuis dix ans, depuis Entre gris clair et gris foncé. Après avoir mis entre parenthèses le trio Fredericks-Goldman-Jones, Carole Fredericks a sorti un album de gospel et Michael Jones un album de blues. C'est au tour de Goldman de sortir le sien.

Perhaps Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Devin du Village has been waiting just for you for two centuries at the Theatre de la Reine at the Petit Trianon. On September 19, 1780, Marie-Antoinette was on stage, in costume, and was acting with her troop of aristocrats in front of a public of close friends. That evening, she was singing the role of Colette, the heroine of this one act opera composed in 1753 by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, perhaps the most celebrated work of its time. That exceptional evening, a veritable fantasy of the Queens who imagined that she was a shepherdess, has been resuscitated under the direction of Sebastien dHerin in a costumed reconstitution, staged in the original historic sets.

In 2019, Alexandre and Jean-Jacques Kantorow’s recording of the last three piano concertos by Camille Saint-Saëns earned the highest praise around the world, including a Diapason d’or de l’année, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone and top marks and recommendations from the leading German web sites Klassik Heute and Klassik.com. The Kantorows’ orchestra of choice was the Finnish ensemble Tapiola Sinfonietta, and they have now returned to Helsinki to record not only Saint-Saëns’ first two concertos, but all of the remaining works for piano and orchestra.