Special offer. Versailles - Alexandre Tharaud
Alexandre Tharaud (piano), Sabine Devieilhe (soprano), Justin Taylor (piano)
Awards:
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2019
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Presto Editor's Choice, November 2019
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Gramophone Magazine, February 2020, Editor's Choice
He doesn’t let the fact that some of this music is inherently unpianistic get in his way…It’s a beautifully programmed disc – so much so that it begs to be heard complete. And the sense that...
Special offer. Versailles - Alexandre Tharaud
Alexandre Tharaud (piano), Sabine Devieilhe (soprano), Justin Taylor (piano)
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2019
-
Presto Editor's Choice, November 2019
-
Gramophone Magazine, February 2020, Editor's Choice
He doesn’t let the fact that some of this music is inherently unpianistic get in his way…It’s a beautifully programmed disc – so much so that it begs to be heard complete. And the sense that...
About
Alexandre Tharaud pays tribute to composers associated with the courts of the French kings Louis XIV, XV and XVI. Lully, Rameau, Charpentier and François Couperin stand beside lesser-known masters: d’Anglebert, Forqueray, Royer, Duphly and Balbastre. “I’ve always been attracted by French music of this period,” says Tharaud, adding that when he plays the album’s initial Rameau prelude, “It’s like being alone at Versailles, opening the doors and entering those huge, imposing rooms.”
Contents and tracklist
Spotlight on this release
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Awards and reviews
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Presto Recordings of the YearFinalist 2019
-
Presto Editor's ChoiceNovember 2019
-
Gramophone MagazineFebruary 2020Editor's Choice
February 2020
He doesn’t let the fact that some of this music is inherently unpianistic get in his way…It’s a beautifully programmed disc – so much so that it begs to be heard complete. And the sense that he has lived with this music for a long time is abundantly apparent… His sense of characterisation and fine detailing is everywhere apparent… Even for aficionados of this repertoire there are surprises to be had.
January 2020
Such verbal insight and enthusiasm are mirrored in superb performances of the music, be they frisky or plaintive, poetic or pungent, gloriously dismissive of convention or expectation. In Rameau’s Gavotte et doubles he employs the widest variety of touch and colour, revelling in the resources of a modern piano, while in the same composer’s Viens, Hymen he is joined by silvery-voiced Sabine Devieilhe.
November 2019
There’s a wonderful sense of light and space to this programme of music by composers with links to the courts of Louis XIV, XV and XVI (recorded not in Versailles but half an hour down the road in the Salle Colonne); Tharaud conjures some beguiling pearly timbres from his Steinway in Rameau’s Le rappel des oiseaux and Visée’s Sarabande, but the stand-outs for me are the Royer pieces, which often sound quite astonishingly modern here.
