On a previous post (CLICK HERE) i shared some infos about my very first recording !
Therese Brenet : Le Visionnaire
Very recently I was able to take back a lot of pictures from my "dead" Iphone (3! so it is quite old), and there were many that were made during this recording, and ... i never shared them on any social media.
The recording session was at the old "Vogue" studios, where people like Jacques Dutronc (Paris s’éveille) and Serge Gainesbourg recorded "back in the day". It's an amazing place and we had a great time doing the recording.
But .... THE reason that gave me the will to do it , is to discover that the cd label shared on youtube a lot of tracks from this cd .
So before the funny pictures, i am sharing with you those audio files
Dans l'Or Vibrant du Désert , for piano and violin
Le Visionnaire for alto saxophone viola and piano
Du Bronze et de lumière for Serpent and piano (yes the ancestor of trumpet!)
The first movement of Quintet for piano and strings
the 2nd movment :
last movement
and my favorite : le Boustophédron for flute clarinet violin cello and piano
Now the pictures :
It was my first pro classical recording , so .... do not get mad after the almost naive photos or comments :)
Arrival to the Studio
It was in banlieu , so .... far away from Paris !
The outside was nice
and pretty big.
The studio was very well known in the 80's for some cult french bands
The studio has everything necessary !
Preparing all the equipments
start to see how it looks like
micro are getting installed
Dear Paul supervising
micro tests
Scores on the piano for the "very contemporary" piece of Brenet (Boustophedron)
First take
Boustophedron takes
micro improvements
last minute change
warming up the next piece
a pause, time to take coffee and some candies
we can see from the outisde it s wonderful concrete structure
a nice loby
and an even nicer listening room
the army of mic
Now some pictures of the recording itself
listening time
i was lucky to do it with my good childhood frend and excellent celist Eric Zorgnoti !
bye bye nice piano ....
I really hope you liked those pictures and the samples , and that they will give you the desire to deep your knowledge about Brenet, a composer really to keep an eye on (even if next year she will turn 80!)
Yes ! It has been released , and this time very fast ! THE cd with my very first recording of a Debussy piece !
Well .... i see you might think :"What ? after the recordings he did and with all the other pieces , he is stuck with Debussy?"
You might be right on this, but ... as a frenchy (or an arogant frog as my lovely friends from Aussie used to call me for fun) Debussy is really an important composer. Also the love of his music came only some years ago, and ... i still remember Maestro Entremont mumbeling after me "loosing time" as he used to say with Liszt & Satie while Debussy was waiting for me !
Canope is also a very dear piano piece, as far as i remember, this is the very 1st Debussy piece i teached.
Also Jean Catoire & Olivier Greif are World Premiere on recording !
But .... This is NOT the only thing why the program i play on it is so dear to me.
In fact, beside Jean Catoire, the other pieces are pieces i have been performing since the very first recitals i did 6 years ago ! (well as you can guess reading this post, no, i am not a prodigee !)
So let stop the crap , this is the whole program and ... it rocks !! On bold, the pieces i am perfoming !
Tracklist:
Disc 1:
1. Claude Debussy Canope (1909)
2. Erik Satie Trois morceaux en forme de poire (1903)
3. Guillaume Apollinaire Le Pont Mirabeau (1913)
4. Marcel Duchamp Musical Erratum (1913)
5. Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes Le Nombril interlope (1920)
6. Jean (Hans) Arp Strassburgkonfiguration (1931)
7. Francis Picabia La Nourrice américaine (1920)
8. Arthur Honegger Pacific 231 (1923)
9. Jean Cocteau Les Voleurs d'Enfants (1929)
10. Robert Desnos Relation d'un rêve (1938)
11-16. L'Album des Six (1920)
17-20. Dane Rudhyar Tetragram #3 (Rebirth) (1927)
21. Olivier Greif 2nd Hommage à Raymond Roussel (1971)
Disc 2:
1. Olivier Messiaen Cantéyodjayâ (1949)
2-6. Pierre Schaeffer Cinq études de bruits (1948)
7. Pierre Henry La Voile d'Orphée (1953)
8. Edgard Varèse Poème électronique (1958)
9. Pierre Boulez Sonatine, pour flûte et piano (1946)
10. Jean Catoire Opus 145 (1969)
11. Philippe Hersant La lande (2001)
2xCD booklet features archive images and detailed historical notes. Also available as a digital download.
My tacks had been recorded by the fantastic Nikolaos Samaltanos , and ... he did a WONDERFUL job !!!!
Also ..... to my greatest pleasure, Maestro Philippe HERSANT who received a copy of the cd was really really please with my performance and said :
"Un grand merci et un grand bravo à vous ! Votre interprétation de la lande, dans ce tempo très lent, presque dilaté, est vraiment impressionnante !"
So ..... poorly translated by me, it would be !
A great thank and a great bravo to you! Your rendering of La Lande in this very slow tempo, almost dilated is really impressive !
héhé ! Yes it makes my day, as i am a huge fan of the music of Philippe Hersant (he is the very first french alive composer i choose to perform on concert) !
Now to make this post more complete and also a bit funny, i share with you some pictures from the recording cession.
Nothing special you would say, but .... not so much !
In fact i have a little gem : 'How i did the Duchamp'
As you might know, the Duchamp Erratum Music is a Random Piece
Here a little video of me performing it in Italy some years ago.
I normally don't like the aproach : "i took by random the notes, put on a score and do the concert after"
Well ... my aproach was more radical : i am writting all the piano 88 keys on 88 little papers, put on a jar and someone during my performance is puttng the papers front of me.
But .... on recording ..... how to keep the "real random" process ?
My idea was quite simple :
I took a "number random generator" on internet : set up for a result of 88 numbers never repeating.
I set them on 3 huges papers so i can see well the numbers.
Also on the piano, i put number 1 to 88 , a sicker every 5 number
After 2 try , Mr Samaltanos got the perfect idea : to add a "light metronome" to make it really perfect , as .... with the piece going on ... even if i kept the same touch, the tempo was not "so much" perfect.
And .... to add a "last minute" random touch, i changed (at random) the page order
Now you know all the little secrets about this recording session !
In fact as many might have seen, i had been more effective with the other blog, the one dedicated to the GlassWorlds.
The last 6 months had been extremely busy :
1 more cd had been relesed the French Avant Garde
5 had been recorded :
X for Henry Flynt
the French Avant Garde
and 3 more volumes of the Complete Glass
also a little track from a Waller portrait (a piece dedicated to me)
I had been working a lot , on preparing more concerts, masterclasses in Tallinn alongside with concerts everyday with ... of course different repertoire everytime !
the 5 Liszt concertos with the Monte Carlo Orchestra, concert that was postponned at the very very last minute ......
Also some great concerts with my SAI Ensemble and now i am preparing the rest.
Anyway, i will end this "return" post with a great new !
The 1st Volume of the Complete Glass at Naxos will be released
Early March for USA & UK
and End of March for the rest of the world !
Yes a new season is starting with great new projects coming ! GlassWorlds will be on tour starting in November ! Plus some orchestra concerts as well !
Some might have seen, i also took care of my Instagram acount as well , posting some fun pictures
I am very please to write to you again , and i thank you so much to be there folowing my activities !
I hope to have the pleasure to meet you numerous at my forthcoming concerts !
