Raphaela Gromes - Romantic - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

After falling in love with the quartets of Britten and Bartók, we developed a long-standing desire to record these masterpieces. For our debut CD Longing we chose their first quartets, as well as Webern's first string quartet work Langsamer Satz. All three remarkable works resonate with a profound and unmistakable sense of longing. We felt a sense of kinship with these composers as they, like us, were still discovering their distinct style and identity when creating these works.In Langsamer Satz, Webern beautifully showcases the height of longing for love in the romantic 19th century. Bartók continues this romantic idiom and goes on to develop the new sounds of the early 20th century, a period from which we draw so much of our own passions. Finally, Britten continues to explore the sound and identity of the 20th century in his own distinctive colour palette. These works not only keep us on the edge of our seats, but also express a beautiful longing, one which we recognize in ourselves, and one we want to share with our listeners.

Raphaela Gromes has received acclaim for her highly virtuoso, brilliant and passionately expressive cello playing. What also distinguishes this exceptional musician is her enjoyment of the musical treasure hunt. With her last Sony Classical releases, she delighted critics and audiences with world premiere recordings of pieces by Richard Strauss and Julius Klengel. Her InchOffenbachInch album received the Opus Klassik Award 2020. For her new album InchImaginationInch, Raphaela chose imaginative music, music based on stories, on fairy tales. The wide selection includes a waltz from Tchaikovsky's ballet music InchSleeping Beauty,Inch a InchFairy Tale NarrationInch by Robert Schumann, the InchEvening PrayerInch from Humperdinck's popular fairy tale opera InchHansel and GretelInch, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's InchFlight of the BumblebeeInch and other dreamy, magical and highly poetic pieces by Claude Debussy (1862-1918), Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847), Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) and Franz Liszt (1811-1886). InchImaginationInch also presents less-known works by David Popper, Paul Juon, and rarities like InchMärchenstundeInch by the composer Margarete Schweikert, and InchForgotten Fairy TalesInch by the New Yorker Edward McDowell. Most of the pieces are newly arranged by Raphaela's duo-partner Julian Riem for violoncello and piano, but also for piano trio and for complementary harp and saxophone quartet. Raphaela Gromes recorded the arrangements with Julian Riem and musician friends such as Daniels Dodds (violin), Arcis Saxophone Quartet and Anaïs Gaudemard (harp). Raphaela Gromes came up with the idea for this album during a hike in the spring of 2020 - when she came across a particularly enchanted place in a forest at dusk. InchThe sky was reflected in the pond, and the backlighting caused a magic glow to emerge around the reeds and flowers, as if elves and fairies

FET. NAT creates a bombastic mix of left-field punk, free jazz, trip-hop and precise noise. The Hull, Quebec four-piece is built up of Olivier Fairfield on drums, Pierre-Luc Clement on guitars, Linsey Wellman on saxophone, and punctuated by the nihilistic franglais poetics of vocalist JFNO. His lyrical outbursts evoke the absurdist humour of American Wrestling and kung fu movies, while carrying forward the torch of the Rock In Opposition movement. Known for fiery live performances lifted by the foursome's theatrical stage antics, FET. NAT transcends language and province, reorganizing overlapping nations into a carnival of levitating and confounding grooves. Le Mal, the band's first full-length album since 2014's Poule mange poule, turns concept on it's head as FET. NAT submerges in it's own upside-downside-up world. An illusory mirror image of itself, Le Mal is comprised of five pieces on one side and MIDI interpretations of the same pieces on the flip. The result is a full-player record of discernible variety, with JFNO's warped poetics telling two same-but-different tales underscored by instrumentals of startling restraint, with hushed, menacing polyrhythms and a dire sense of elation lurking beneath. Le Mal shows a band of seemingly limitless connectivity revelling in the unsettling murkiness of machines.