Philippe Katerinetotal à L'ouest

For his latest ATMA Classique recording, horn player Louis-Philippe Marsolais has chosen a selection of chamber music by Clara and Robert Schumann composed for various instruments, some of which have been transcribed for horn. He is joined by pianists Philip Chiu and David Jalbert, and cellists Stéphane Tétreault and Cameron Crozman.

A unique collector's edition is a "climbing on the history of music" for 20 centuries from ancient times (Greece) to the present day. "History of Music", the 20-disc collection. Starting with the ancient music, music of the Middle Ages continued, Renaissance and Baroque music and ending the era of romanticism and modernity.

Olivier Greif was an outstanding composer and pianist who died before his time. His complex, charismatic personality made an impression on every artist who encountered him. A keen duty of remembrance has animated them ever since, now relayed by a young generation who have been captivated by his vibrant, tragic and yet radiant music. Olivier Greif was born in Paris on the 3 rd of January, 1950, to Jewish, Polish émigré parents. (His father, a pianist, and survivor of Auschwitz, became a neuropsychiatrist.) Olivier entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten. At the age of seventeen, he obtained his first prize for composition in Tony Aubin’s class, then going on to hone his skills in New York with Luciano Berio. From the age of eleven until he was thirty-one, he composed highly individualistic works (including Chants de l’Âme in 1979), outside current trends.

While any of Liszt's superb transcriptions of Beethoven's first eight symphonies is a challenge for the pianist, the two-piano arrangement of the Ninth is at once spellbinding and a formidable test. This remarkable synthesis of soloists, chorus and orchestra presents a powerful structure that condenses all the fearsome difficulties of ensemble playing for the two pianists. This version by Philippe Cassard and Cédric Pescia displays extraordinary nobility, truth and grandeur, with the epic sweep ideally suited to the "Ode to Joy".