la Stampa22 Giugno 2023

Véronique Gens’s version of La Voix humaine has been eagerly awaited! This ‘lyric tragedy in one act’ might have been written for her, so ideally suited are her feeling for language and her dramatic intensity to Poulenc’s monologue on a text by Jean Cocteau, composed in 1958. This is a far cry from the ‘light’ Poulenc of the 1920s. Cocteau paid him the highest compliment: ‘Dear Francis, you have fixed, once and for all, the way to speak my text.’
Véronique Gens confesses that she had always wanted to perform and record this piece; now she has achieved her ambition, in close partnership with the Orchestre National de Lille under its music director Alexandre Bloch. Also featured on the album is the Sinfonietta: this is in fact a genuine symphony, but, as Nicolas Southon writes, ‘there is no denying that the work – commissioned by the BBC in 1947 – has a freshness and a freedom of tone that justify its title’.

Hailed by Gramophone as ‘a master of his instrument and a musician of lyrical elegance and good taste’and by Le Monde as belonging to ‘the French cello elite’, Christian Pierre La Marca has, in a few years, distinguished himself by his radiant presence in the world’s leading concert halls and his award-winning recordings. After making his debut in Aix-en-Provence, he studied in Paris with Jean-Marie Gamard and Philippe Muller, before continuing with Frans Helmerson in Cologne and Steven Isserlis in London. He rounded off his training with masterclasses under Mstislav Rostropovich, Heinrich Schiff, Anner Bylsma, Natalia Gutmanand Gary Hoffman, and benefited from the advice and encouragement of such musical personalities as Itzhak Perlman, Philippe Jaroussky, Thomas Quasthoff, Leif Ove Andsnes, Maria João Pires, the Artemis Quartett, François-Xavier Roth and Seiji Ozawa. His trajectory was crowned with success at international competitions in Osaka, Frankfurt, London (Philharmonia), New-York (YCA) and Vienna (Haydn) and he has several times been invited to appear at the French Grammies.

Véronique Gens’s version of La Voix humaine has been eagerly awaited! This ‘lyric tragedy in one act’ might have been written for her, so ideally suited are her feeling for language and her dramatic intensity to Poulenc’s monologue on a text by Jean Cocteau, composed in 1958. This is a far cry from the ‘light’ Poulenc of the 1920s. Cocteau paid him the highest compliment: ‘Dear Francis, you have fixed, once and for all, the way to speak my text.’
Véronique Gens confesses that she had always wanted to perform and record this piece; now she has achieved her ambition, in close partnership with the Orchestre National de Lille under its music director Alexandre Bloch. Also featured on the album is the Sinfonietta: this is in fact a genuine symphony, but, as Nicolas Southon writes, ‘there is no denying that the work – commissioned by the BBC in 1947 – has a freshness and a freedom of tone that justify its title’.

Wer mag sie nicht, die Ciaccona, Ciacona oder Chaconne – diesen unwiderstehlichen Tanz, in dem die Oberstimmen scheinbar in Improvisationen und Imitationen über einem Bass-Schema musizieren?

Inevitable that one's pulse trembles when talking about a new album (the thirteenth, for more inri), by Doctor I Digress.

Celebrated Montréal flutist Joanna Marsden explores the work of eighteenth century French composer Michel Pignolet de Montéclair on MONTÉCLAIR CONCERTS FOR BAROQUE FLUTE from Navona Records. The performances feature The Opus Project, a chamber music initiative founded by Marsden and Christophe Gauthier dedicated to revisiting early musical prints and manuscript sources in order to celebrate the unsung treasures of baroque chamber music.