The works for cello and piano of Gabriel Fauré stemmed primarily from the antipodes of his career. Early on, he primarily composed miniatures, though the well-known Op. 24 Elegie was intended to be a movement of a sonata that never came to pass. The works from near the end of his life -- especially the two complete sonatas -- both feature surprisingly spirited, bright, eager moments despite the composer's failing health and hearing. Pianist Eric le Sage is joined by cellist François Salque on this impressive Alpha album. The sound quality achieved by le Sage, Salque, and the recording engineers at Alpha is what truly sets this album apart from others like it. The overall recorded sound quality is dry, crisp, close, and possessing a minimum of reverb. Even a bit more of any of these qualities and the disc would be sterile and uninteresting. But in their present combination, the outcome is one of exceptional clarity and focus, one in which listeners are transported to the very heart of the music. Salque and le Sage play with equal measures of austerity and simplicity, letting Fauré's sometimes overlooked sonatas speak to the openness and freedom achieved by the composer late in his career. The disc ends with a likewise enjoyable and gripping performance of the Op. 120 Trio with the addition of clarinetist Paul Meyer. As Vol. 1 of what is hopefully a survey of Fauré's complete chamber music, this installment is definitely worth checking out.© TiVo

Recordings : Ferme de Villefavard, Limousin, France 7-9.VII.2008 (Op. 121) - Fondation Singer-Polignac, Paris, France : 4—12.VII.2010 (op. 13, 15, 24, 25, 28, 45, 69, 77, 78, 108, 109, 116, 117, 120, Morceau de Lecture) - 27-29.IX.2010 (op. 115) - 9-10.X.2010 (op. 89, Morceau de Lecture for two violoncellos)

Though chamber music is incontestably the least well-known component of his corpus, Camille Saint-Saëns was a master of the genre, leaving us with a large collection of works. We may think of Saint-Saëns as a conservative and very academic composer. And yet, we would be well advised to remember that he was, in fact, a pioneer. Even as a young man, Saint-Saëns delved into chamber music instead of opera, the conventional form for an up-and-coming musician. He composed chamber music throughout his life - through to the final woodwind sonatas in 1921 - restoring lustre to the form which, in France, had been all but forgotten. A driving force in the 19th century movement to reinvigorate the French school, Saint-Saëns paved the way for an entire generation of French musicians. This included his student Gabriel Fauré, who would go on to make an important contribution to the chamber music repertoire himself. These works embody the essence of Saint-Saëns’ composition: his lifelong and unyielding quest for perfection in form, and quality of the melodic line. It is fair to call Saint-Saëns a natural-born melodist, a true aesthete devoted to endowing a phrase with purity and beauty. In 2021, what better way to celebrate the centennial of the composer’s death than to discover (or rediscover) this unfairly forgotten repertoire? For this recording of Saint-Saëns’ complete works for strings and piano - the first of its kind - I was joined by chamber musicians with a passion for rare music. In addition to the violin and cello duets that we are pleased to present in this first volume, two trios, two quartets and a quintet for piano were also composed. Le Déluge Ensemble was founded in 2019 for this venture. Our name was inspired by Saint-Saëns’ homonymous oratorio and the radiant violin solo in the prelude that depicts the golden age of humanity. A version for piano written by the composer can be heard on this recording. © Laurent Wagschal/AdVitam Records

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Hélène Jourdan Mourhange met Ravel for the first time after a concert in which she performed his Trio. She was an interesting, intelligent woman, well versed in the arts and culture of her time, and was a talented violinist who, however, had to stop playing years later due to rheumatoid arthritis. She then dedicated herself to musicology, reviews and other artistic activities. Not only that she was, like Lina Tur Bonet, a violin player, but also shared that same disease, which Lina Tur Bonet suffered in her youth. This has made her feel even closer to Ravel, and to feel a desire to make a tribute to Hélène by recording all the pieces written for her and thanks to her. The close friendship between the two lasted throughout the life of the composer and he often asked her for advice while composing his violin works. In their inexhaustible friendship he affectionately called her "Moune". Together with Maréchal, she premiered the Sonata for Violin and Cello (1921) dedicated to Claude Debussy, one of Ravel’s bravest compositions. Ravel also dedicated his Violin Sonata (1923-1927) to her, a work to which he devoted much energy and time, and in which he tried to combine two instruments that he actually considered incompatible. The first poetic movement is very similar to the first movements of the Duo and the Piano Trio, but the rest seems to have been more complicated for him, taking years to finish. Finally, he wrote a Blues as a second movement, and a Perpetuum mobile heavily influenced by the modern music they used to listen to on their long nights together in Paris. He also composed for Hélène the marvelous Berceuse sur le nome de Gabriel Fauré (1922), using the letters of his teacher's name turned into notes to build the simple and magical melody that she could still play. Although Ravel asked Hélène to bring him the violin and the 24 Paganini Capriccios as inspiration for the composition of the Tzigane (1924), and was helped by her again, this time the piece was dedicated to the Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Arányi. He wanted to make a virtuoso piece inspired on Paganini and Liszt, and probably Hélène, due to her illness, was no longer able to perform. He made three versions of the Tzigane, for the virtuoso violin accompanied by the piano, an orchestral version, and also the most unique, accompanied by the Luthéal, a prepared piano with registers of a harpsichord and the cymbal-like sound, with its wonderful gypsy and rhapsodic character. This tribute arrives for Lina Tur Bonet in a moment in which every work she performs is combined with a deep study of the performance of those times. This is why she chooses to record on gut strings, bows from that moment and a historical piano, as well as the less known version of the Tzigane with the Lutheal. The blending of gut strings between violin and cello, as well as with the old piano and the Lutheal is unique and helps to understand many of the aspects of performance in many old recordings. &copuy; Challenge Classics