Faure Quartett - Faure Quartets - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Faure Complete Piano Quartets & Quintets / Composer Gabriel Fauré / Performer Jacqueline Eymar, Bernard Braunholz, Werner Neuhaus, Günter Kehr, Number of Discs 2 / Length 2 Hours 3 Mins. Recordings from the sixties (1966), sounding amazingly fresh and transparent. Reissue of one of the gems from the early VOX catalogue Fauré 's complete piano quartets and quintets played by Jacqueline Eymar! Jacqueline Eymar (1922-2008), a pupil of Yves Nat, was one of the Grand Dames of the French piano school, together with Monique de la Bruchollerie and Yvonne Lefebure. Her style is elegant, perfectly natural, InchinwardlyInch brilliant, playing the great French and German Romantics with exquisite taste and understanding. A superb set presenting the masterworks of Fauré's chamber music oeuvre, counting among his most frequently performed works. Fauré's Piano Quintets are both mature masterpieces and showcase how his musical language had evolved and become more experimental. Op.89 won great admiration from it's dedicatee Eugène Ysaÿe, who called it 'absolute music in the purest sense of the word'. Op.115, dedicated to another eminent composer, Paul Dukas, dates from 1921, three years before Fauré's death, and could be said to represent the pinnacle of his art. Indeed, following it's premiere in Paris, one reviewer wrote 'We had expected a beautiful work, but not one as beautiful as this.'

After Hours is the new concept album by the Faure Quartett. The world famous piano quartet consists of the same for members since íts founding in 1995. They present an album full of encores from composers such as Debussy, Strauss and Dvorak. These pieces are lined by original compositions dedicated to the ensemble by composer friends such as Jarkko Riihimaki. Two other friends, clarinettist Matthias Schorn and soprano Annette Dasch, make appearences as soloists. Encores defy the convention and have the potential to be surprising and engage the listeners in a special way and exactly that is what this album does.

This is the final volume in the acclaimed series with Malcolm Martineau, charting the complete songs of French composer Gabriel Fauré and performed by a selection of the world's finest singers. This series follows Martineau's heralded 5-album series of The Complete Songs of Francis Poulenc. Malcolm Martineau was born in Edinburgh, read Music at St Catharine's College, Cambridge and studied at the Royal College of Music. Recognised as one of the leading accompanists of his generation, he has worked with many of the world's greatest singers including Sir Thomas Allen, Dame Janet Baker, Olaf Bar, Barbara Bonney, Ian Bostridge, Angela Gheorghiu, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Della Jones, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager, Magdalena Kozena, Solveig Kringelborn, Jonathan Lemalu, Dame Felicity Lott, Christopher Maltman, Karita Mattila, Lisa Milne, Ann Murray, Anna Netrebko, Anne Sofie von Otter, Joan Rodgers, Amanda Roocroft, Michael Schade, Frederica von Stade, Sarah Walker and Bryn Terfel. He was a given an honorary doctorate at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 2004, and appointed International Fellow of Accompaniment in 2009. Malcolm was the Artistic Director of the 2011 Leeds Lieder+ Festival.