Vincent Dumestre - Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

A journey through countries, periods and styles on the theme of dance. The themes and melodies are borrowed from Spanish, Turkish, Russian, Italian, English, Hungarian and French composers, inspired by folk music and dances. Édouard Ferlet has used this music to compose new pieces, arranged for harpsichord and piano. There are no direct quotations here, rather a thread which is woven between these well-known melodies and a new musical vocabulary. In each piece Violaine Cochard and Edouard Ferlet improvise freely, each with their individual 'temperament' and sensibility. They work on sonority, texture, the exploration of sound palettes, specialization, phrasing, distillation. The two artists seek to develop sonic possibilities, articulations, playing techniques and interaction between their musical personalities. A special feature is their work on pulse and tempo, with compound meters linked with the rhythms of folksongs and dances, which are often in compound time. Each piece is underpinned by an individual dramaturgy; the melodies are immediately appealing because they remind us of something while surprising us with jazz and contemporary arrangements.

Steven Graff - Music from America's First & Second Cities [COMPACT DISCS] date 10/27/2009

?Fascinated by the interplay of echoes from one past to another, Vincent Dumestre and Stéphanie d'Oustrac found an affinity in the project Mon Amant de Saint-Jean, their very first collaboration, and aimed to make it a unique musical adventure a recital in which the atmosphere of the chansons of the Années Folles infuses early music with it's sweet madness. In 1904, the great cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert was invited to the home of the Casadesus family, the founders of the Société des Instruments Anciens (Early instrument society) the Baroque fraternised with the café-concert. Around the same time, in the revue Paris qui chante, an aria by Scarlatti rubbed shoulders with the coarse language of Aristide Bruant and Paulin, while Gaston Dumestre, a singer at the cabaret Le Chat Noir (and one of Vincent's ancestors!), sang chansons réalistes while accompanying himself on the theorbo presented to him by Oscar II of Sweden 'It is in language that we must seek the common driving force. These cabaret singers relished a very special flavour, a vigour, a raciness in the words of the Baroque era', concludes Vincent Dumestre.