French violinist Clement Janinet composes music for quartet inspired by the lyricism of the free jazz melodies of the 60s (Ornette Coleman, Phoraoh Sanders, &c.) and the timbral and rhythmic textures of repetitive music (Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, &c) in several quartet configurations including bass clarinet, tenor sax, bass, drums, guitrar, and cello.
The six trio sonatas stand out as an almost unique exception in Bach s output for the organ, essentially composed for the Lutheran liturgy in a style that is frequently much more severe and sometimes positively out of step with the tastes of his time. Here, though, all the ingredients of the style galant are present: the flexibility and singing character of the melodic lines, the purity and apparent simplicity of the three-part harmony, not forgetting the three-movement form.
Alexey Zuev has a very special relationship with Stravinsky’s music. From the age of seven, it entered his musical universe like a premonition, when he unknowingly ‘composed’ a piece that bore astonishing similarities to Petrushka . Five years later, he discovered the ‘real’ Stravinsky and his music never left him.
The 1991 French film Tous les matins du monde (All the Mornings of the World) attracted an audience of unexpected size for a story about French Baroque viol music, becoming a runaway hit in France and Germany and even gained wide distribution in the classical-chary U.S. The commercial ramifications grew with the release of the film's soundtrack, featuring early music giant Jordi Savall on viol; the soundtrack achieved platinum sales levels in its initial release. The film's story, built on a very few sketchy facts about the reclusive seventeenth century viol player known only as Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, drew viewers with its modern resonances touching on the conflict between art and popular success, and partly with its dramatic lighting reminiscent of the paintings of Louis le Nain. The soundtrack has a few pieces with vocals or with a small ensemble of other players.
Jacques Ibert (1890 - 1962) was a unique figure in 20th century France. In his long life he was influenced by the various musical styles, from the 'impressionists' Debussy and Ravel, through the neoclassicism of Satie and the Groupe des Six, to later more expressionistic composers. But foremost he was himself, and he wrote in a vivid, spiritual and often humorous style, in which his Gallic Esprit always shone forth. This set contains his complete chamber music output, for such diverse instruments al harp, guitar, flute, cello, bassoon, clarinet, saxophone, harpsichord and trumpet.
Born blind, Vierne partially regained sight at age six. Obvious talent was rewarded with piano and solfège studies, to which were added harmony, violin, and a general course when he entered the Institution National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris in 1880. There he was befriended by César Franck who, from 1886, gave him private tuition in harmony while including Vierne in his organ class at the Paris Conservatoire. The lessons of the master were not lost on him – Franck possessed perhaps the richest harmonic palette in Western music and Vierne effortlessly absorbed many of its features. Vierne entered the Conservatoire as a full-time student in 1890. Franck died in November, succeeded by Charles-Marie Widor as professor of organ.