Marie Flore Tout Dit

Microcosm and macrocosm, might and focus: On her new GENUIN CD, pianist Marie Rosa Gunter combines Ludwig van Beethoven's late "Hammerklavier Sonata" and his "Bagatelles" op. 126 with Anton Webern's aphoristic Variations op. 27, as well as the world premiere recording of Variations on "Jerusalem" by Braunschweig composer Ulrich. The CD is an insight into magnificent later works in a highly demanding pairing born out of the silence of the pandemic. Once again, the pianist, who teaches at the University of Music and Drama in Hanover, brings out a CD with profundity at the highest level following her production featuring Bach's Goldberg Variations!

The enormously prolific Marie Joseph Erb (1858–1944) has somehow escaped the attention of posterity, although the quality of his music is on a par with contemporary organist-composers whose works are far better known. Erb’s long life – he heard Berlioz conduct in 1863 and was still composing in 1944 – was focused on Strasbourg, where he was active as pianist, organist and professor, though he had studied in Paris, with Faure, Gigout, Saint-Saëns and Widor, and later with Liszt in Weimar. This first album devoted to his organ music in almost 30 years sandwiches four lyrical chamber works between two towering sonatas.

The Canadian contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and its Artistic and Music Director Kazuki Yamada, interprets the now ‘traditional’ recorded pairing of two sumptuous, escapist French song cycles: Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été and Ravel’s Shéhérazade. Complementing them both musically and thematically is a third, less frequently heard cycle by another great French composer, Camille Saint-Saëns: his Mélodies Persanes (Persian Songs). “From the first note to the last, Lemieux’s interpretation of the Berlioz was exemplary …” wrote Bachtrack when she performed Les Nuits d’été in Paris. “From the depths of her lower register to her shimmering high notes, she traced a supple trajectory through the work, phrasing with amplitude and missing no opportunity for word-painting.”

"Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach" is a valuable document packed with the teachings of Johann Sebastian, which gives a glimpse of the high expectations of Friedemann, the 10-year-old eldest son of the Bach family. For us today as well, when studying Bach's works, this music book can be said to be a treasure trove of techniques for learning about the performance styles and composition methods of the time. It's not just for practice, it's beautifully lined with highly artistic works, and Marie Nishiyama plays them brilliantly.

Louis XVI was the last king of France (1774-92) in the line of Bourbon monarchs preceding the French Revolution of 1789. Louis and his queen consort, Marie-Antoinette, were guillotined in 1793 on charges of counter-revolution.
Following the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814, the Bourbons returned to power in France and restored the system of monarchy under Louis XVIII. During this process, they also introduced a number of highly symbolic cultural acts as a public representation of the Bourbon dynasty. In 1815, the new king Louis XVIII had the mortal remains of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette removed from the Cimetière de la Madeleine in a solemn ceremony, taken to Saint Denis and placed in separate graves in the crypt.