Saint Saen

Emmanuel Despax returns to Signum with a disc of JS Bach transcriptions. The title quotes Victor Hugo’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre-Dame’ (“Breathe, Hope”), brought to Despax’s mind following the news of the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral, where he had attended many concerts of Bach’s music as a child. Despax describes Bach’s music as being “of such clarity, coherence and expressive power, that it is able to transcend its original medium, and to some extent, style.

In the past few years, the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz has repeatedly raised public awareness with CD releases at Christmas time, with top-quality musical discs for grants for important cultural buildings and their preservation. A CD was released in 2016, which in the blurb promotes such funds for the restoration of the Friedenskirche in Potsdam. The listening enjoyment of this CD ranges from Handel's water music to an excerpt from Bach's "The Art of the Fugue", ie the baroque musical work, through romanticism, and R. Schumann represents the "reverie" from the children's scenes to Camille Saint-Saen's "The Swan" "from the carnival of animals. A wonderful compilation that invites you to listen and donate.