Ophelie Gaillard and friends
Ophelie Gaillard and friends
Exiles in quartet
Ernest Bloch, Maurice Ravel, Chava Alberstein, Iurie Morar, Jean-François Zygel
With Iurie Morar, Pierre Genisson, Bernard Cazauran
CD Aparté 2017
“Destiny has made me a wandering Jew,” wrote Ernest Bloch in a letter to Romain Rolland.
This programme brings together a number of Jewish composers who emigrated to the United States. My aim, with my cello, is to follow these composers in their exile at the time of one of the greatest catastrophes of last century.
The voice of the great Chava Alberstein, singing in Yiddish – a language that has been so abused in the course of history, and one that is so fragile and so touching – acts as our guide.
Madrid / Buenos Aires
In trio with Juanjo Mosalini and Romain Lecuyer
Villa-Lobos, De Falla, Cassado, Piazzolla, Gismonti, traditional tangos
Vienna 1900
A. Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht, A. Webern, Langsamer Satz, R. Strauss, Capriccio sextet
The Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement) dates from 1905, when Webern was twenty-one; he composed it in three weeks. Its inspiration is said to have been a hiking holiday taken in the mountains near Vienna with Wilhelmine Mörtl, his soon to be fiancée and later wife. It was accompanied by a poem written by Webern in language very close to that of the poet Richard Dehmel, whose Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) inspired his teacher Schoenberg’s composition of the same name in 1899. We are not far here from the Wagner of Tristan und Isolde, a style that irrigates an expressionism traversed by gusts of violence, showing extreme harmonic refinement.
As a counterpoint, we hear the wonderfully evocative string sextet from Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio. Written in 1942 by a composer compromised with the Nazi regime, it uses a tonal writing reminiscent of German post-Romantic music of the turn of the century.
Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time
(Quartet for the End of Time)
This work was inspired by a text from the Book of Revelation and written in 1940, when Olivier Messiaen, having been captured by the German army, was imprisoned in Stalag VIII-A, a prisoner-of-war camp in Görlitz.
Octet The Swiss Cellists
A tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach,
Villa-Lobos, Pärt), with the Cellists of the Geneva Haute École de Musique
Popular rhythms and traditions run through all the works brought together on this programme devoted to the cello, and to cellos in the plural. Enjoy the tender, lilting music of Bacchianas Brasileiras, inspired by the dance suites of J.S. Bach, the spirituality of the polyphony of Arvo Pärt, and the octet for cellos written by the young Argentinian composer Gabriel Sivak in tribute to the great Brazilian percussionist Naná Vasconselos.
Alvorada & Canto de sereia
We continue our Brazilian adventure with an icon of bossa nova: Toquinho.
A new programme including new songs and arrangements, in quartet with Toquinho.
Concert on 6 October at La Cigale in Paris
The live album “Canto de sereia” is due for release on 19 November (Aparté label).
Press
“Immediately, Alvorada stands apart from other discs.” Gramophone Awards 2015 (UK)
“Gaillard and her friends cross the Atlantic to explore with brio Latin American styles.” The Strad, 2015 (UK)
“Alvorada immerses us in a world of sound with Ophélie Gaillard and a group of exceptional musicians, who treat us to a fascinating journey that we unhesitatingly recommend.” HispaOpera, 2015 (Spain)
“A communicative energy, driven by a high level of virtuosity…” La Libre Belgique, 2015 (Belgium)
“This journey is not only exotic, it is also inward: what Ophelia Gaillard’s subtle bow reveals is the result of pure emotion.” – Diapason (France)
