Pascal Gallet

As with many episodes in Franz Schubert’s life, uncertainty surrounds the origins of his two trios for piano, violin and cello. We know that they were played to a Viennese audience, one on 26 December 1827 and the other on 26 March 1828, but not in which order. Although it is more likely that the Trio no. 1 in B flat major op. 99 was performed before the Trio no. 2 in E flat major op. 100, musicologists remain divided on the subject. Documentary sources provide a certain amount of information about the Trio op. 100: the manuscript tells us it was composed in November 1827, while Schubert’s correspondence shows a composer desperate to have his work published, even to the extent of removing a number of development sections and a repeat from the final movement because some publishers found the work too long. The manuscript of the first trio has been lost. By comparing indirect evidence, however, including the different types of manuscript paper Schubert used, we may conjecture that the Trio op. 99 was also composed in the autumn of 1827.

Saint-Saëns - Piano Concertos 1-5 - Pascal Rogé, Charles Dutoit (1981) {2CD Set Decca 443 865-2 rel 1995}
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© 1981, 1995 Decca | 443 865-2
Classical / Romantic

Among the virtuosity warhorses in the piano repertory, the five concertos by Camille Saint-Saens have established an appealing reputation. The audiences worldwide are enchanted to attend performances by great virtuosos in utterly melodious and harmonic works with dazzling keyboard pyrotechnics and musical ideas of the most refined quality. Yet, a very few of the professional pianists dare to approach this pianistic output by one of the most prolific and multifaceted artists of the European culture (composer, playwright, philosopher, astronomer, archaeologist, poet etc). To find the proper touch, to balance the wild virtuosity with the subtle musical concept, to get the deepest level of significance in these works – are all difficult tasks that require a high level of artistry (not only in pianistic terms).

The music of Michael Jarrell has been said to “examine states of dream and unreality, searching for a moment of truth” – a truth which is often found in the lowest sonorities and slowest tempi, a place where time stands still. His works are often interrelated, not only by a certain sensitivity or a distinctive tone, but also by the recurrence of particular features that he reworks in different contexts. The present disc combines two recent concertos, each of them performed by its dedicatee. In July 2019, three years after they gave the first performance of Émergences-Résurgences, Tabea Zimmermann rejoined l’Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and Pascal Rophé in order to record the work.