Monneuse, Denis

26 year-old Denis Kozhukhin arrives on the recording scene fully-fledged, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus. Intellect is central: I’ve never heard so much revelatory detail in Prokofiev’s triptych of dark and painful masterpieces. Kozhukhin has a way of bringing out the detail of the inner parts, or even a usually inconsequential-seeming bass line, that highlights the drama instead of distracting from it; there’s so much internal play in the droll march-scherzo of the Sixth Sonata, so much genius revealed about the way Prokofiev elaborates or dislocates the minuet theme at the heart of the Eighth. The touch is one that the composer-pianist would probably applaud: clear rather than dry, recorded with superb presence and ringing treble, bringing in the sustaining pedal with mesmerising care only to nuance the more pensive themes.

On the death of Anne of Brittany, her husband King Louis XII honoured her with exceptional funeral ceremonies lasting forty days, which sealed forever her image as Queen of France and Duchess of Brittany. As he prepared this programme centring on the Missa pro defunctis of Antoine de Févin, and read the exceptionally vivid narrative by the herald of Anne of Brittany (whom her subjects nicknamed simply ‘Bretaigne’!), Denis Raisin Dadre realised that beyond all this official mourning staged by the royal authority, there was also a silent sorrow, that of the Bretons who had lost their duchess and were also in the process of losing their duchy’s independence.

Présentation de 130 inventions qui ont marqué l'histoire de l'humanité, du néolithique au XXIe siècle. La lampe, le miroir, la clepsydre, l'abaque, l'alambic, l'imprimerie, le baromètre, le gramophone, l'égreneuse de coton, le barbelé, le nylon, le transistor et Wikipédia sont décrits. …

Très bon livre. Bonne immersion dans l'ambiance de l'époque. Livre facile à lire. Constitue une bonne base de départ pour les personnes souhaitant découvrir les sources de cette musique …