Pierre Fournier was born in Paris on 24 June in 1906 the son of a French army general. He was known for his lyrical playing and his impeccable artistic sensitivity and this, during his lifetime, earned him the title 'the aristocrat of cellists'.
Fournier was first taught piano by his mother but at the age of nine he suffered a mild case of polio and lost some of the agility in his legs and feet. He was no longer able to master the use of the piano pedals and so turned to the cello.
Jean-Pierre Rampal is often considered the greatest flutist of the modern era. In addition to his exceptional talent, he raised the flute to unprecedented solo status, popularizing the flute literature, the flute recital and flute recordings. The rediscovery of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic repertoire for the flute is one of his outstanding achievements, as well as his numerous collaborations with composers; over 100 works have been written for and premiered by him. He recorded for Erato from the mid-1950s, with many discs receiving awards internationally. This is the second of four boxed sets comprising the complete Erato recordings (1954 to 1982) and the complete HMV recordings (1952-1976), gathered together for the first time. The set ranges from the masterpieces of Mozart, Handel and Bach to modern repertoire by Damase and Arma.
There seems something soberingly final about the title of Deutsche Grammophon's collection, which brings together recordings of all the music Pierre Boulez acknowledges, from the 12 Notations for piano of 1946 to Dérive 2, the churning, turbulent ensemble piece that reached its latest, 44-minute form in 2006. Boulez is now 88; his eyesight is known to be failing, and new works such as the Waiting for Godot opera planned for La Scala may never be fulfilled. Similarly, the scores long marked "work in progress" in his catalogue may for ever remain just that. As Claude Samuel says in his wonderfully perceptive and informative notes to the set, "more than anyone else's, Pierre Boulez's oeuvre has not known completion and never will". What's on these 13 discs, then, is likely to be the body of work on which Boulez's place in the history of 20th-century music will be assessed.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard has for decades acted as the foremost contemporary exponent of modern piano music, building a reputation for profound musicality across the works of widely varied composers and even further-ranging techniques. In an immensely satisfying traversal of the genre, this 6 disc set of Debussy, Ravel, Boulez, Berg, Ives, Messiaen, Ligeti, and Carter works is a snapshot of Aimard doing some of the best work of his storied career.