Aaron COPLAND: Two Pieces for String Quartet: I. Lento molto – Maurice RAVEL: Le Tombeau de Couperin, M. 68: I. Prélude (Arr. by Antonin Rey) – III. Forlane (Arr. by Antonin Rey) – V. Menuet (Arr. by Antonin Rey) – IV. Rigaudon (Arr. by Antonin Rey) – Igor STRAVINSKY: Concertino for String Quartet – L’oiseau de feu: Berceuse (Arr. by Samuel Dushkin) – Petrouchka: Russian Dance (Arr. by Samuel Dushkin) – Double Canon for String Quartet “Raoul Dufy in memoriam” – Three Pieces for String Quartet: I. Dance – II. Excentrique – III. Cantique – Paul NOVAK: A String Quartet is like a Flock of Birds – Aaron COPLAND: Two Pieces for String Quartet: II. Rondino – Luciano BERIO: Folk Songs: No. 1 Black is the Colour (USA) – No. 2 I Wonder as I Wander (USA) – No. 3 Loosin Yelav (Armenia) – No. 4 Rossignolet du bois (France) – No. 5 A la femminisca (Sicily) – No. 6 La donna ideale (Italy) – No. 7 Ballo (Italy) – No. 8 Mottetu de Tristura (Sardinia) – No. 9 Malurous qu’o uno fenno (Auvergne – France) – No. 10 Lo fiolaire (Auvergne – France) – No. 11 Azerbaijan Love Song.

Quatuor Lontano: Pauline Klaus, Violin – Florent Billy, Violin – Loïc Abdelfettah, Viola – Camille Renault, Cello.
https://www.quatuorlontano.fr/

Guests: Amaya Dominguez, Mezzo-Soprano – Samuel Bricault, Flute – Antoine Cambruzzi, Clarinet – Sylvain Devaux, Oboe and Percussions – Constance Luzzati, Harp – Quentin Dubreuil, Percussions – Violaine Debever, Piano – Antonin Rey, Conductor.

La montagne magique

Gathering more than seven years of festival on one album may seem like a lost bet: how to convey the richness, the exultation and the joys that mark this time of summer and which now punctuate our lives as musicians linked to the history of Assy and its festival…

But it is also a very special happiness that this kind of challenge instils, the very one that governs the programming of the Musicales: the beauty of bringing together musicians, artists, sometimes relatives and friends, with different personalities and trajectories, perhaps even seemingly opposite, and to bet and believe in these encounters.

It is this singular and contagious happiness (the one that accompanies, all things considered, the emergence of harmony) that this “retrospective” recordings bears witness to, and in this very faithful to the spirit of the festival. Faithful also, perhaps and above all, to the spirit of the church of Assy itself, which brought together the great artists of the time (Matisse, Bonnard, Chagall, Lurçat, Léger, Rouault, Richier…), in a “magical” place, and like no other.

Thus, the Folk songs of the very avant-garde Italian composer Luciano Berio – popular melodies speaking a universal language, coming from the depths of time, delivered to the voice of the magnificent AmayaDominguez – echo the ancient dances sublimated by Maurice Ravel, in the aftermarth of the first World War, in his Tombeau de Couperin (here in an original transcription by Antonin Rey). Thus, two Pieces for string quartet by Aaron Copland rub shoulders with the quartet A string Quartet is like a flock of birds (2021) by the young American composer Paul Novak, distinguished by the Lontano Quartet following an international call for composition and crowned with a public prize at Assy… Finally, at the heart of this album, the work for quartet by Igor Stravinsky, famous host of the Plateau d’Assy, radiates his verve and his modernity: a corpus whose richness and audacity are equaled only by conciseness, which cannot be grasped in a single movement and which demands to be listened to, visited with insistence, in order to deliver all its facets… Two arrangements for violin and piano accompany this ensemble, in memory of the great orchestral frescoes of the Firebird and Petrushka, with which Stravinsky gave the full measure of his inspiration and his incandescent writing, and established himself as one of the great creators of his time.

This album is the second of the Lontano Quartet, a group that has been at the heart of the festival since its inception, and which accompanies me in this adventure, year after year, with virtuosity. The musicians are surrounded here by their long-time partners, to celebrate together the fruit of these collaborations. All, musicians, volunteers, lifelong supporters, passing friends, cannot be mentioned here: but special thanks to Alexis Galpérine and Lucie Kayas for their irreplaceable help.

Pauline Klaus,
Artistic Director of the Musicales d’Assy

VEL1672 Booklet.pdf