Renaud

Elgar’s violin concerto – distinctively passionate and nostalgic – is one of the great late-Romantic concertos. “It is a huge piece,” says Renaud Capuçon “both in terms of its length and its romantic and noble nature.” This is Capuçon’s first recording with Sir Simon Rattle, here conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. When Rattle chose Elgar’s Enigma Variations for his inaugural concert as the LSO’s music director in 2017, he was celebrating the close historic links between the composer and the orchestra. Not only did the LSO accompany Fritz Kreisler in the premiere of the violin concerto in 1910, Elgar became its Principal Conductor the following year. Paired with the concerto on this album is his violin sonata, first performed in 1919. Renaud Capuçon, who calls the sonata “a work of nobility and tenderness”, is joined by one of the leading British pianists of today, Stephen Hough.

Mozart: Violin Concertos 1 & 3, Sinfonia Concertante (2009)
(Renaud Capuçon, Antoine Tamestit, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Louis Langree)
FLAC+CUE+LOG | 310 MB | no scans
MP3 CBR 320kbps | 168 MB
Classic/Chamber | Virgin | 59:45

Following his first solo concertos disc of Mendelssohn and Schumann, French violinist Renaud Capuçon chose a disc of Mozart's first and third concertos, as well as his imposing Sinfonia Concertante, with outstanding young violist Antoine Tamestit. All three works feature the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by fellow Frenchman and Mozart expert Louis Langrée. Says Capuçon of Langrée (who has directed the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York since 2002): "Working with Louis Langrée is a particular privilege, his Mozart has honesty, purity and joie de vivre…grace, in fact." And of the SCO: "The players' finesse of articulation and their colors are drawn from chamber music…This simplicity of approach is essential for me." This intimate reading offers new insights into these familiar works, particularly during the grief-stricken slow movement of the Sinfonia Concertante, which finds all three musicians digging deep into the emotional core of the music.

En mars 1980, Renaud est à l'affiche de Bobino pour quatre semaines. C'est le souvenir de cette triomphale série de concerts que ce double live nous restitue. Au long de dix-sept chansons que Renaud interprétait dans la seconde partie de son spectacle. Après avoir consacré la première à des chansons réalistes tirées des répertoires de Bruant, Fréhel et autres, et dont témoigne un autre album, précisément intitulé A Bobino, chansons réalistes.