Villiers

Famed for his sequence of Piano Concertos, Sterndale Bennett also wrote a small but distinguished body of chamber music. The String Quartet in G major is one of his earliest surviving works, revealing a precocious talent still strongly influenced by Haydn. Mendelssohn is the model for the Sextet, though Bennett’s highly virtuosic piano writing, with its concertante interplay, reinforces the work’s lyrical qualities and required dexterity as well as its advanced harmonies and hymnal beauty. The concise Chamber Trio radiates sheer charm while displaying an even greater grasp of structure and is the first English example in the trio form where both string instruments are given parts independent of the piano.

P. de Villiers dresse un constat de l'état de la France et montre en quoi la nation est victime d'un mémoricide, une destruction de sa mémoire. Il évoque ses souvenirs d'enfance, revient sur la création du Puy du Fou et sur son parcours politique. Il témoigne de son amour inconditionnel pour son pays et de ses espoirs pour les années à venir. …

Pour rendre à Jeanne, au-delà de la place qu'elle occupe dans l'Histoire, un peu son humanité et de sa fragilité, Philippe de Villiers est parti sur ses traces : il a visité et revisité Domrémy, Chinon, Orléans et Compiègne, Le Crotoy et Rouen. Il a longé la Loire, refait la route du Sacre et celle de la capture. Il s'est imprégné de l'air qu'elle a respiré, a renoué avec sa langue, son univers, les saisons de son enfance. Il a relu les dernières minutes du procès et s'est laissé habiter par la force unique de cette guerrière. …

This album is the first recording of the complete 1888 Delius String Quartet, following the quartet’s previous Naxos release of the original 1916 Delius String Quartet (8.573586) where it was coupled with the Elgar Quartet. The String Quartet in E minor by Ethel Smyth, one of the most innovative and original figures in English music, has a masterful coherence and consistency. With eloquent writing for the viola in particular, it is both playful and reverential, and ends with a flourish – forthright, bold and uncompromising, like Smyth herself. Delius wrote the early String Quartet in 1888 but it was rejected for performance and he was later to reuse the Scherzo for his mature Quartet of 1916–19 (8.573586). In 2018 the score of the two opening movements of the 1888 Quartet, long assumed lost, reappeared at auction and have been edited and reunited with the final two in this premiere recording, which adds significantly to our understanding of Delius’ early compositional directions.