Tomes And Terriers

La Grande Histoire des Français sous l'occupation est l'œuvre majeure d'Henri Amouroux édité chez Robert Laffont à partir de 1976. De par sa formation, Amouroux utilise volontiers le style journalistique, mais les faits sont strictement référencés. Il utilise également de nombreux témoignages de plus humbles acteurs de l'Histoire. C'est un succès d'éditions, les premiers tomes s'étant vendus à plus de 2 000 000 d'exemplaires. …

Since none of Mendelssohn's cello and piano works were currently available on CD, this disc would have been welcome enough even without the tenderly nostalgic little unpublished Assai tranguillo (written by the 26-year-old Mendelssohn for his good young friend, Julius Rietz) recorded here for the very first time. Lasting only just over two minutes it ends inconclusively on the dominant, as if intended to preface something bigger.

Weber’s chamber music – just these three pieces if you don’t count the duos – clearly shows him on the cusp between Classical and Romantic. The Quartet for piano and strings, written in his early twenties between 1807 and 1809, begins with a Haydnesque gracefulness and politeness which is gradually invaded by more unruly harmonies and textures; the dramatic slow movement looks ahead to Schumann, while the closing fugue of the finale dresses 18th-century procedures in 19th-century colours. Then there’s the element of virtuosity which is a hallmark of the early Romantic era, in the showy piano part of the Quartet, which Weber wrote for himself, the concerto-like clarinet part in the Quintet with strings, designed for the pioneering Heinrich Baermann, and all three parts of the tuneful Trio for flute, cello and piano. The talented members of the pan-European Gaudier Ensemble are perfectly equipped to convey these different aspects of Weber’s musical personality, with the fleet-fingered pianist Susan Tomes leading the way in the Quartet and Trio, and Richard Hosford in the Clarinet Quintet recalling contemporary descriptions of Baermann’s own effortless brilliance.

Tome *
Établie d'après le manuscrit original, voici l'édition définitive de l'Histoire de ma vie de Casanova (1725-1798). Elle comprendra deux autres volumes, auxquels s'ajoutera un quatrième regroupant des textes philosophiques, dont certains inédits en français. L'ensemble permettra de redonner à ce chef-d'oeuvre sa saveur et sa vérité originelles. …

No, not another Mozart piano concerto disc! No indeed, for this pioneering recording gives us intimate, almost domestic versions of three of the composer’s masterpieces, versions that have scarcely been played, let alone set to disc, in the modern concert era. Moreover they give us the opportunity to hear Susan Tomes show her mettle in strong light as concerto soloist—and bring to a wider repertoire the distinct communicative magic that has made her one of the foremost chamber pianists of today.