Guillaume Mussot

Born in 1970, Guillaume Connesson has won several prestigious awards. His writing, thanks to an exceptional sense of rhythm and color, is of a very accessible language, even exciting, which has earned him great success, especially with the younger generations. The program of this double CD is the richest possible calling card of the composer's work: it contains his most beautiful pages of chamber music, interpreted by the very best of French soloists, including Eric Le Sage. (piano), Paul Meyer (clarinet) Jerôme Pernoo (cello), Florent Héau (clarinet) and the Parisii Quartet in particular.

Dreams of Spain is an imaginary musical voyage of composers living in France who were inspired by the sunshine, the dance rhythms and folk music of Iberia: Maurice Ravel, Emmanuel Chabrier, Gabriel Fauré, Mel Bonis, Vincent d'Indy and Manuel de Falla. In Paris at the time of the Belle Époque, after the success of Carmen the French were mad about Spain and all things Spanish, and both sides of the Pyrenees witnessed a musical celebration of the region’s lively folk traditions.

With Malinconia, Yan Levionnois and Guillaume Bellom invite us to a musical exploration of nostalgia. From Debussy to Piazzolla, via Webern, Fauré, Janacek, Bartok, Sibelius and Liszt, this album also offers a journey through the 20th century. Through pieces testifying to the personal vision of this state by eight composers, this programme offers a juxtaposition of styles. Rich in contrasts, it offers an immediately perceptible diversity in which the works illuminate each other.

After a critically acclaimed first album, the Ouranos Ensemble returns to the recording studio with pianist Guillaume Vincent. This mischievous album brings together masterpieces by Strauss, Poulenc and Françaix, and reveals the virtuosity of wind instruments through a thousand musical antics. A seductive program, carried with mastery by one of the most distinguished ensembles of recent years!

“Guillaume and I worked day and night on both pieces and tried to do justice to every phrase, to give it contour and depth. During this radical quest for authenticity, we went to our utmost limits and beyond to comprehend these scores as profoundly as possible, to extract the composers' substance, in order to penetrate the endless musical universe of Strauss and Franck. This is because we know that we have to make 'a strong statement' amid the ocean of legendary recordings. We believe that we have achieved this and hope our listeners can feel and hear it.” (Brieuc Vourch)

Were just one example to be given of the richness and diversity of Mozart's achievements, Concertos Nos. 23 & 24 would undoubtedly make excellent candidates. Completed almost simultaneously in Vienna in early 1786, the two concertos contrast starkly and seem to have been written years apart – or by two distinct yet connected minds of equal genius. Even more astonishing is the fact that they were written in parallel with the first masterpiece of the Da Ponte trilogy, The Marriage of Figaro, while sharing with it very few stylistic similarities.

Some years ago Austrian radio ORF started a series of recordings with polyphony from the renaissance on its own label. The ensemble The Sound and the Fury has recorded music by well-known masters like Nicolas Gombert, Pierre de la Rue and Johannes Ockeghem. But they have also paid attention to some forgotten composers of the 15th century. One of them is Guillaume Faugues. As so often there is quite a difference between his reputation in his own time and in modern times. It is very likely nothing of his oeuvre has ever been recorded before.