Giuseppe Carrer - La Guitare Et L'organiste - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Gianluca Luisi - Complete Piano Music Soirees Italiennes 30 [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/29/2009

Schubert's music is as naive as the poet's expressions; the emotions contained in the poems are as deeply reflected in his own feelings, and these are so brought out in sound that no-one can sing or hear them without being touched to the heart. Thus read a Viennese critic's review of Winterreise, a true masterpiece published in the final year of the composer's life. Enthralled by the verse of Wilhelm Muller (1794-1827), Schubert slightly changed the order of the poems so as to make a story - of a wanderer, a homeless man, unrequited in love and disappointed by the whole word. A tale that has always prompted questions as to what degree it reflects the personal experiences of the two artists, the poet and the musician, coevals whose lives ended too soon. The motif of a vagrant, an outcast loner, was characteristic of 19th-century Romanticism, yet it seems to resonate with the feeling of solitude of those living today. Possessing a robust, colorful voice, the bass Jan Martinik inheres an immense sensitivity for expressing the intimacy of Schubert's songs. He has proved his calibre by having attained success at international competitions, as well as by having performed to great acclaim on major opera stages. Following his Supraphon debut, Martinik has recorded Winterreise, splendidly accompanied on the piano by David Marecek. The virtue of their joint music journey lies in modest simplicity and profound intimacy.

Violinist Sylvia Huang, a prizewinner at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2019, and Éliane Reyes, the renowned virtuoso pianist, present a new disc bubbling with elegance and femininity. Linked by a keen musical rapport and an irrepressible friendship, they declare their love for Belgian Romantic music, embodied by two emblematic composers Eugène Ysaÿe, a natural musical companion whom every violinist has encountered or dreamt about, and Guillaume Lekeu, a dazzling musical genius taken from us all too soon. This recording reveals some skillfully chosen gems by Ysaÿe, including two unpublished early pieces, the Mazurka de concert and the Grande Valse de concert (the latter a world premiere). Lekeu is represented by the sublime Sonata for piano and violin, dedicated to Eugène Ysaÿe; the musicians had the opportunity to consult, with an almost fervent enthusiasm, the original manuscript in Verviers, the birthplace of both the composer and Éliane Reyes. A radiant album, overwhelming in it's sincerity.