Pascal Amoyel - Arts/Scène Production

Pascal
Pascal
Amoyel
Amoyel
Season 2016-2017
Joe Laredo, CD Reviews, 2010
A beautifully played and recorded version of the
complete nocturnes. Amoyel is inspired by some of
the greatest nocturnes: Op.27 n°1 is finely spun;
Op.27 n°2 is exquisitely poised; and Op.48 n°1 is
appropriately passionate.
If you like your nocturnes sweetly dreamy and
nightmare-free, these sumptuous recordings might
satisfy.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
(Disc: 1846, last year at Nohant)
Their performance manages to fashion a perfectly
lucid path through the musical thickets of the sonata’s first movement, which can sometimes seem too
overloaded with invention. If the other three movements are more straightforward, the two players
never forget that this is a work for musical equals,
and the give and take between them is exemplary.
The rest of the disc is devoted to solo piano pieces,
and in the most part Amoyel’s playing of those is
equally perceptive.[…] especially the otherworldly
magic of the two nocturnes Op 62, with their effortlessly sustained melodies and unexpected harmonic
side-slips. It’s a lovely anthology, beautifully thought
out and always executed with perceptive care
Charles Timbrell, International Record Review
Pascal Amoyel, a French pianist, plays with colour,
refinement and dynamic variety, and also has all
the requisite technique for the most challenging
moments in ‘Invocation’ and ‘Funérailles’
Pascal Amoyel
Like Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire and
Rafał Blechacz, Pascal Amoyel has received an award from Warsaw’s prestigious Fryderyk Chopin Society for his
complete recording of the composer’s
Nocturnes. His recording of Liszt’s Funérailles has been hailed as one of the
all-time great performances. His career
has seen him grace major international
stages, including Berlin’s Philharmonie,
the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and
the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, as well
as performing in the United States, Canada, China, Korea and elsewhere. His
recordings, both solo and with the cellist
Emmanuelle Bertrand, have received the
highest recognition, including a Cannes
Classical Award, Diapason d’Or of the
year, a “Choc” rating from Le Monde de
la Musique, and the Preis der deutschen
Schallplattenkritik. As a composer, Pascal Amoyel is a Fondation Banque Populaire prizewinner. He is also a pioneer of
new forms of concert. His show The pianist with 50 fingers played to full houses
at the Avignon Festival and for several
months in Paris. He will be performing
his new production The day I met Franz
Liszt from 3 December 2015 at Paris’s
Théâtre Le Ranelagh. Pascal Amoyel is
professor of piano and improvisation
at the Rueil Regional Conservatory and
director of the Notes d’Automne Festival, and has commissioned some 30
new pieces. He has been awarded the
International League against Racism and
Antisemitism’s Jean Pierre-Bloch Prize
in recognition of his work’s support for
human rights, and has been appointed
Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des
James Manheim, All Music
[…] the performances here are very fine.
Bertrand and Amoyel deliver a deceptively laidback performance of the Cello
Sonata that brings out the structure of the
first movement, which so puzzled Chopin’s
contemporaries; the germ of all the
material in the opening melody is clearly
traced. Amoyel on his own brings a sense
of exhaustion to the two nocturnes, but
does not try to impose it on music where it
doesn’t belong.
Helen Wallace, BBC Music Magazine
Emmanuelle Bertrand and pianist
Pascal Amoyel have an exquisitely
sensitive partnership, at its best in
passages of lingering lyricism.
I would keep this disc for its unique
collection of Lyric Pieces, which the
duo have themselves transcribed
for cello and piano in subtly arrangements that play with a surprising
variety of timbres and textures. Their
delicate rendition of Vöglein using
pizzicato and barely-there string
chords is pure enchantment ****
Programmes
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
THE COMPLETE POLONAISES
The writing of the polonaises spanned Chopin’s entire life –
he composed the first aged just seven. Invoking the dance as
much as the clamour for nationhood, the form was brought to
distinction in Chopin’s hands, in a virtuosic and poetic transformation unequalled in the history of music. While some of
his polonaises have become celebrated (the so-called “Military” and “Heroic” Polonaises), others unfortunately remain little known. When my recording of the six “great polonaises”
and the Polonaise-Fantaisie was released, I wanted to bring
these masterpieces together with some of the nocturnes, so as
to put into relief a form that Chopin transcended. Tragedy,
pride, melancholy, despair and contemplation rub shoulders
as the polonaises become epic nocturnes and the nocturnes
turn into dream polonaises.
Polonaise op. 26 n.1 & n.2
Polonaise op. 40 n°1 « Military » & op. 40 n.2
Polonaise op. 44 « Tragic » ••••••••
Nocturne op. 27 n.1 & n.2
Polonaise-Fantaisie op. 61
Polonaise op. 53 « Heroic »
A CENTURY OF FRENCH MUSIC
THE ROMANTIC ERA
THE FOUR AGES OF LIFE
Liszt Wiegenlied (chant du berceau)
Alkan Grande Sonate « Les 4 âges » (Four ages)
Duo with cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand
programme related to the release of the disc dedicted to Saint-Saëns
by Harmonia Mundi – Spring 2017.
••••••••
Liszt Romance
Liszt Forgotten romance
Grieg Remembrances (Lyric Pieces)
Grieg Arietta (Lyric Pieces)
Liszt Obermann Valley
Works from La Tombelle, Fauré, Alkan and Saint-Saëns
Joanne Talbot, Strad Magazine
Emmanuelle Bertrand and Pascal
Amoyel present an almost ideal
performance of Grieg’s Cello
Sonata. Supported by a wonderfully vivid recording, they elicit a
totally compelling narrative in the
first movement. The ensuing Andante
achieves a marvelous poetic lyricism
that balances spontaneity with a tautly
controlled sense of musical line, while
the finale is dazzling and intense, and
its forceful conclusion is delivered with
captivating élan.
CONCERTOS
concertos planned next season
A CENTURY OF FRENCH MUSIC
THE MODERN ERA
Duo with cellist Emmanuelle Bertrand
Tribute concert to Henri Dutilleux for the centenary of his
birth in 2016
Programme related to the release of the disc Dutilleux / Debussy by
Harmonia Mundi - Winter 2015.
Debussy Sonata for cello and piano
Dutilleux Trois strophes sur le nom de Sacher
Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte & Jeux d'eau
Dutilleux Au gré des ondes
Messiaen, Louange à l'eternité de jésus (extract of The Quartet
for The End of Time)
Poulenc Sonata for cello and piano
Grieg, Concerto op. 16
Franck Variations Symphoniques
Liszt Totentanz
BBC Music Magazine
Rich pickings! Alkan and R Strauss Sonatas
are given suitably grandiose performances.
Bertrand and Amoyel complement each
other superbly *****
San Francisco Chronicle
[…] he real excitement here is the playing
of Bertrand and Amoyel -the one lush
and full-voiced, the other forceful but
just restrained enough to offer a textural
counterpoint. Together they make eloquent
magic.
Discography / A selection
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
1846, DERNIÈRE ANNÉE À NOHANT
Harmonia Mundi, 2015
Emmanuelle Bertrand cello
Pascal Amoyel piano
1846: the last summer that Chopin was to spend
on George Sand’s estate at Nohant, where he had
composed or completed the core of his œuvre
over a period of seven years. Pascal Amoyel and
Emmanuelle Bertrand plunge us into the heart of
those few months before the couple’s separation; the
ailing Chopin did not yet know that he was leaving
his musical testament.
CHARLES-VALENTIN ALKAN
ŒUVRES POUR PIANO
La Dolce Volta, 2013
One of the great forgotten figures in the history
of music, a man admired by Liszt, nicknamed
«the Berlioz of the piano» by Hans von Bülow,
is undoubtedly Charles-Valentin Alkan, the bestkept secret of French Romanticism, the composer
of solitary and impassioned souls.
An exceptionally gifted and vulnerable virtuoso
piano, he was a demanding and inventive composer, a tormented artist who produced a kaleidoscopic and passionate body of work. .
FRANZ LISZT
HARMONIES POÉTIQUES ET
RELIGIEUSES
La Dolce Volta, 2011
The exultation and despair find a deeply
empathetic heart in Amoyel. In “Funérailles”
Amoyel bypasses conventional wisdom, going his
own way with the greatest imaginative resource,
and few performances of this tragic masterpiece
have achieved a greater impact. This is an
invaluable album.
Bryce Morrison, Grammophone
FREDERIC CHOPIN
NOCTURNES. INTÉGRALE
Caliope 2004 - 2nd edition 2011
This recording of Chopin’s Complete Nocturnes
by Pascal Amoyel was awarded, on the occasion
of the bicentenary of the composer’s birth, a
«Grand Prix du Disque Frédéric Chopin 2010»
by the Fryderyk Chopin Society, like M. Argerich,
N. Freire and R. Blechacz.
OLIVIER GREIF
Triton, 2010
Emmanuelle Bertrand cello
Pascal Amoyel piano
The recording of the War Sonata presented here
first appeared on a 1999 disc on the Pianovox
label (deleted), under the artistic direction of
Olivier Greif himself. The recording of Piano
Sonata no. 22 Les Plaisirs de Chérence is a world
premiere. This recording by Pascal Amoyel is
proof, if proof were needed, of his devotion to
the composer.
ALEXANDRE SCRIABINE
INTÉGRALE DES POÈMES
Caliope, 2006
Pascal Amoyel’s touch emphasises the strangeness
and mysticism of a very poignant conception.
The listener is spellbound by a remarkable
Poème-Nocturne […], and indeed by the entire
programme, anchored by the final Poème Op.72
Vers la Flamme … Not a crackling fire, but a
sombre flame, voluptuous and mysterious – just
like the whole disc.
Alain Cochard, Diapason.
Delphine Dewald
+32 (0)2 880 50 95
dw@arts-scene.be
www.arts-scene.be