Hélène Sio J'veux Tout Savoir

Hélène de Montgeroult’s life reads like a novel: showing a precocious musical ability as a child in pre-revolutionary France, she became fêted as one of the finest pianists and improvisers of her time. Imprisoned during an attempt to reach Naples at the time of the Revolution, she was able to return to France. Here she worked for the Institut National de Musique, only to be imprisoned again during the Reign of Terror. Finally freed for good, she was made professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris, the first woman to occupy such a position. Meanwhile, she managed to compose an important body of work for the piano as well as a complete method, including 114 études.

Hélène Antoinette Marie de Nervo de Montgeroult (1764–1836) was a student of Clementi in Paris. She survived the French Revolution – during which, as an aristocrat, her life was in grave danger – to become a celebrated pianist, composer and author of a famous piano method. Her compositional language in these nine sonatas is wide and includes Italianate models as well as elements that reflect the influence of Haydn and Mozart, with chromatic and surprising harmonies, contrasts of register, chorale-like nobility and brilliantly athletic finales.

Biber - Helene Schmitt - Honori XV Sacronem Mysterionem. The Rosary Sonatas (2016) {2CD Aeolus Official Digital Downloads}
FLAC (tracks) - 44kHz/16 bit - Official Digital Download (qobuz.com) -> 827 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 343 Mb | Artwork | 5% repair rar
© 2016 Aeolus | AE10256
Classical / Baroque / Chamber Music / Violin

The violinist, Helene Schmitt, manifests herself completely in this new recording for the German label AEOLUS. A genuine accomplishment for the musician. The Rosary Sonatas not only deal with mysteries, they are a mystery themselves. With this violin cycle made up of fifteen sonatas and a solo passacaglia, Biber created one of the most astonishing works of the entire violin repertoire. Famous and even today not completely decrypted in terms of its significance is the assignment of the sonatas to the sacred Christian mysteries.

After nearly four years she is finally back again: the unchallenged schlager-queen Helene Fischer presents her new album, the successor to her number one album »Farbenspiel« from 2013.

The essence of Camille Saint-Saëns' music comes through perhaps most clearly in his music for solo instrument and orchestra, which exemplifies his elegant combination of melody and conservatory-generated virtuosity. The two cello concertos are here, plus a pair of crowd-pleasing short works for piano and orchestra, and the evergreen Carnival of the Animals, with pianists Louis Lortie and Hélène Mercier joining forces along with a collection of instruments that includes the often-omitted glass harmonica. There are all kinds of attractions here: the gently humorous and not over-broad Carnival, the songful cello playing of Truls Mørk, and the little-known piano-and-orchestra scene Africa, Op. 89, with its lightly Tunisian flavor (sample this final track). But really, the central thread connecting them all is the conducting of Neeme Järvi and the light, graceful work of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra; French music is the nearly 80-year-old Järvi's most congenial environment, and in this recording, perhaps his last devoted to Saint-Saëns, he has never been better.

One of the most important German composers to emerge during the post-World War II era, Bernd Alois Zimmermann was born in the outskirts of Cologne in 1918. Zimmermann's music frequently borders on unplayability, and it is only through the exceptional gifts of a handful of players and conductors (including cellist Siegfried Palm and conductor Hans Rosbaud) that his powerful musical creations escaped oblivion.