Marina Tarasova - V1: French Cello Sonatas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The alto saxophonist Marion Brown (1931), who grew up in Atlanta, moved to New York in 1965, and almost immediately, while still an unknown, played on John Coltrane's seminal album InchAscensionInch and Archie Shepp's InchFire Music,Inch quickly became one of the most radical yet romantic of free improvisers. Brown was an important figure in twentieth-century jazz. Together with Ed Kroeger (trombone), Sigi Busch (bass) and Steve McCall (drums), they played various concerts in Germany as a quartet in 1969 and also stopped at the Club Lila Eule in Bremen on April 24. His son Djinji remembers, InchHis playing tone, sounded like his speaking voice, the way he held his horn reminded me of the way he held my hand, the way he walked was in the same rhythm of his songs, and then it all made sense. His music was who he was first and foremost. It was the purest expression of his soul and everything he did had the same gentle strength as his music did. He was truly one with his art, there was no separating the two.Inch

Albéric Magnard and Louis Vierne Two French Masters of the Cello Sonata. The early years of the twentieth century were a time of transition in French music. While impressionism was gaining ground through Debussy and Ravel, some composers remained faithful to the ideals of structural clarity and expressive depth inherited from the Romantic tradition. Among these figures were Albéric Magnard and Louis Vierne, two artists whose sonatas for cello and piano, both composed in 1910, stand as monuments of French chamber music and offer contrasting yet complementary visions of their era. Albéric Magnard, born in Paris in 1865, was a pupil of Dubois, Guiraud, Massenet, and D'Indy at the Paris Conservatoire, and he frequented the circle of César Franck. In 1896 he became a teacher at Paris's Schola Cantorum. Then, from 1904, he settled in the countryside on his estate at Manoir des Fontaines in Baron (Oise), where he died in 1914, shot by German troops while attempting to defend the property. His last chamber work, the Sonata for Cello and Piano Op. 20, is among his most significant compositions. Composed between 1908 and 1910, it is structured in four movements like all his chamber works, betraying his devotion to German contemporaries and in opposition to French impressionism. Louis Vierne (1870-1937), having been taught by César Franck and Widor, became a famous organist. His most important post was that of Notre Dame in Paris, where he was celebrated for his improvisations. As a composer, he indulged in the post-Wagnerian language of his era highly complicated counterpoint, dense, chromatic harmonies, and an exalted, spiritual atmosphere characterise his works. Vierne's Sonata for Cello and Piano in B minor Op. 27, composed in 1910, offers a fascinating counterpoint to Magnard's work. While Magnard emphasizes formal clarity, Vierne indulges in lyrical expansiveness and har

WORLD PREMIERES (Levitin & Komarov Sonatas) Only the 2nd recording of the Komarov Concerto InchRostropovich thanked [me] for the dedication, which remained in the handwritten score, and spoke very highly of the work and the tremendous performance of Marina Tarasova. At that time, we were already neighbours in the composer's house at No.13 Orgareva Street (now Gazetny Lane)Inch. [Vladimir Komarov]