Chausson

This is the sixth recording by the Doric String Quartet for Chandos Records, and the discography is going from strength to strength. The disc of Schumann’s String Quartets, Op. 41 was ‘Recording of the Month’ simultaneously in BBC Music and Gramophone, and nominated for a Gramophone Award in the Chamber Music category in 2012.

Ernest Chausson - Symphony in B-Flat Major, Soir de fete, The Tempest
L'Orchestre Symphonique De La RTBF / José Serebrier
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 269 MB | Full Artwork: 42 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Chandos # CHAN 8369 | Country/Year: UK 1985
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

Chausson (1855 – 1899) was a French romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish. (…) Chausson's work is deeply individual, but it does reflect some technical influences of both Wagner and his other musical hero Franck. Stylistic traces of Massenet and even Brahms can be detected sometimes. In general, Chausson's compositional idiom bridges the gap between the ripe Romanticism of Massenet and Franck and the more introverted Impressionism of Debussy…

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.

It is easy to understand why Chausson’s Concert is not as regular a feature of concert programmes as, say, Franck’s Violin Sonata. After all, a work for piano, violin and string quartet must surely have an instrumental imbalance. How can Chausson occupy all three violin parts for nearly forty minutes? In short, he does not. Nor does he try. Much of the Concert is essentially a sonata for violin and piano with an accompanying, though essential, string quartet. Chausson’s refusal to involve the quartet at every juncture merely to justify the players’ fees results in a signally well-balanced late Romantic work. When the quartet does feature on an equal footing, the effect is all the more telling. The fingerprints of Franck can be detected readily throughout the Concert, but in this and the Piano Quartet, Chausson’s individuality overcomes his teacher’s influence. Indeed, there are premonitions of Debussy, Ravel and even Shostakovich. Tangibly the product of live performances, these accounts traverse the gamut of emotions, bristling with energy, lyricism and conviction, and ensuring that this disc will never gather much dust.

After the death of the stupendously talented Hector Berlioz in 1869, there remained only one Frenchman to challenge the somewhat frivolous national taste. A Belgian-born Parisian, Cesar Franck became the Pied Piper for serious-minded composers who sought to ennoble French music; of his followers Chausson was as ardent as any.

For me, Elmar Oliveira is probably the most under-rated violin soloist out there. His technique is flawless, his tone warm and somehow his own, his phrasing is nothing less than magic, here is a true artist of the violin for you, no doubt about it whatsoever.
Guillaume Lekeu was a student of Cesar Franck, who many beleieve wrote the best sonata ever written for violin. The Lekeu sonata was written for the legendary violinist Eugene Ysaye. This is a …….

Scott68 @ Amazon.com