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Though Dutilleux began composing at an early age and undertook the rigorous course of study at the Paris Conservatoire, culminating in the much sought-after Prix de Rome in 1938 with a cantata, he regarded his Piano Sonata of 1946-1948 as an Opus 1. This attitude was characteristic of a remarkably fastidious and self-critical composer who dedicated his life to composition – and the nurturing of young composers – and yet whose published output is influential out of all proportion to its size. He wrote the sonata for the pianist Geneviève Joy whom he married in 1946. The musical language is as much modal as tonal, owing as much to Bartók’s methods of musical organization and the 19th-century Germanic concept of the large-scale masterpiece as contemporary developments in harmony. Everything he wrotes seems to repudiate the commonly held idea that French music is essentially frivolous and charming, but Dutilleux’s music can smile and relax, too: while working at French radio he composed a series of short pastiche pieces as air-filler, later compiling them as a suite, Au gré des ondes. Blackbird is Dutilleux’s sole trespass on the territory of his contemporary Messiaen: knowingly brief and non-naturalistic by comparison, a portrait of the blackbird’s soul more than its song. The Debussian heritage of painting on the piano comes to the fore on the set of Three Preludes composed between 1973 and 1988, while Resonances is a study in timbre built with the composer’s individual technique of pivot notes and chords. As Vittoria Quartararo observes in her booklet introduction, "the music of Dutilleux often seems to shift towards a visual level. While the verticality of piano chords can resonate like light does on a black canvas, one’s gaze becomes more horizontal, distant, and at times visionary, detecting the reverberation of a sound transformed in liquid crystal". Born in Sicily in 1989, now resident in Cologne, Vittoria Quartararo is a musician of broad artistic sympathies whose artistic projects range from concert recitals across Europe to experimental meetings of music with improvisation and theatre. Vittoria Quartararo received her piano training at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole with Valentina Pagni and Andrea Lucchesini and continued her musical studies in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln with Jacob Leuschner, Claudio Martínez-Mehner as well as David Smeyers in contemporary music performance. Other significant influences in her musical development include Ewa Kupiec, Alexander Lonquich and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. As a scholar she specialised in the music of Korngold; she performs Classical-era, Romantic and contemporary repertoire alike, working with notable luminaries in the new-music field such as the oboist/conductor Heinz Holliger and the Cologne-based Ensemble 20/21 as well as many living composers. © Piano Classics

“We should strip ourselves of everything, preserving deep inside nothing but a raging yearning for space, true desire, future memories, light, weightless feathers and open arms.” This quotation of Jacques Dor is an almost perfect illustration of Amandine Habib’s thinking when she was working on this original recording, which brings together pieces by Couperin and Debussy. Two centuries separate the two composers but the pianist’s intention, which may seem surprising at first, takes on its full meaning when one takes a closer look. Debussy had decided at the time to dedicate his Cahier d’Etudes pour les cinq doigts ("Etudes for five fingers") to Couperin; his passion for Chopin prevailed and he erased the name of the great baroque artist from his score to replace it by that of the master of romanticism. The two French composers were pioneers. Couperin was the first to break away from the formalism of the dances predominant at that time. Menuet, gavotte and others: the references fade though the rhythms remain, giving way to poetry. Poetry and fantasy are at the heart of Debussy’s work for the piano. The composer wanted to give free rein to the imagination of performers and audiences. In his Préludes, the pieces have no ostensible title. He simply gave an indication by writing his own idea of one at the end of the score. He leaves to those who interpret the title the task of reimagining the content of his music, the images and the colours evoked. Two hundred years apart, Couperin and Debussy are united by the will to bring mystery, sensuality and fantasy to life. Their guiding force is their desire to shed the burden of the conventions of the era, to infuse their compositions with colour and light, and prise open the box of dreams. What is more, performers must combine artistry and technicity to meet the challenges of their work. © 2019 Michel Egea/Melism