The virtuoso French violinist Renaud Capuçon was named artist of the year by the the International Classical Music Awards expert jury composed of music journalists and critics in January of this year, and he will be accompanied by compatriot Guillaume Bellom on the piano in a concert as part of the rich anniversary programme of the 75th Festival.
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Gabriel Fauré:
Violin Sonata No.1 in A major, Op.13
Johannes Brahms:
Viola Sonata No.2 in E-flat major, Op.120
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Richard Strauss:
Violin Sonata in E-flat major, TrV.151, Op.18
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Composer, pianist and organist Gabriel-Urbain Fauré (Pamiers, 1845 – Paris, 1924) played the organ from his youth. A blind old lady reportedly always listened to him play at a chapel in Foix and eventually informed his father about his son’s musical talent. He studied at the Niedermeyer School of Music, then with Saint-Saëns; he was an organist at the Madeleine Church in Paris, and a professor and later director at the Paris Conservatoire, where he taught students such as Ravel, Enescu and Nadia Boulanger. Fauré often combined unusual harmonies and melodies with elegant, seemingly simple framework. He is best known for his art songs, over a hundred of them, but also other chamber music – violin sonatas, cello sonatas, a piano trio, piano quartets and quintets. Towards the end of his life, he composed a String Quartet, without piano.
Gabriel Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 1 is the first work in his notable chamber oeuvre – nine years later, he composed its more famous successor. The first of the four movements is a sweeping sonata form, elegant and expressive; the second is demure and steady in pulse and motion, followed by a lively scherzo and trio. Musicologist Kai Christensen wrote that the bright final rondo, as well as Fauré’s music in general, is characterized by ‘passion without losing poise.’
Johannes Brahms (Hamburg, 1833 – Vienna, 1897) was a Romantic ‘Classicist’, one of the composers who developed the Classical-Romantic instrumental music to its tonal heights. Although he was generally regarded as a musical conservative, Arnold Schönberg considered him a great innovator. He firmly adhered to form and absolute music, but his techniques and structures exceeded the requirements of the genre, merging the art of music construction with emotion, the classicist compositional logic with the poetics of romanticism. He also developed many music forms that his ‘rival’ Wagner had already loudly dismissed. Brahms’s music as it is known today is most likely only a third of his total output, since he often destroyed the works he did not consider good enough, especially those written in his youth. In addition to four symphonies, a violin concerto, A German Requiem, nearly 200 art songs, he also left an extensive and significant chamber oeuvre and a number of piano pieces.
Sonata, Op. 120, No. 2 is Brahms’s last chamber piece, written three years before his death. After having informed his publisher that he would retire from composing, he soon returned to it, largely because the famous clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld inspired him to write several clarinet chamber pieces for him – the Clarinet Trio, the Quintet and two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120. This late, ‘autumnal’ opus is characterized by balance and harmony, everything is reduced to the essentials, without strong contrasts.
The work has a lovely opening, with the broad sweep of the melodious main theme, whose initial motif is constantly changing. The second movement begins more decisively, perhaps with a bit of Hungarian undertones that give way to a gentle chorale in the central part; Andante con moto is a measured variation movement, with six variations on a theme that is related to the first movement. With the rhythm taken from Mendelssohn, in Brahms’s variations sometimes only the harmonic base of the theme is left. The final two variations take on the role of the finale, to an extent, which would normally be in the fourth movement.
Brahms simultaneously published both version of the Sonata, for clarinet and piano, and for viola and piano, although he believed that the latter sounded too dark. He also wrote this lighter and less frequently performed version for violin, in which he changed the piano part.
Richard Strauss (Munich, 1864 – Garmisch-Partenkirchen, 1949), a composer with a large and rich oeuvre, is probably best known for his music for large ensembles. He was conductor at the Munich Opera, Royal Opera Berlin and Vienna State Opera, renowned for his tone poems – inspired by extra-musical narratives, but still firmly ‘absolute’ – and programmatic symphonies in which he gradually significantly increased the orchestra. In his operas (often composed to Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s librettos) he used Wagner’s system of leitmotifs as means of characterisation, but also developed an independent musical language rich in harmony, expressionist, but without breaking the boundaries of tonality. He wrote around two hundred art songs, many of them under the influence of his wife, the temperamental soprano Pauline de Ahna, who sang Elisabeth in Wagner’s Tannhäuser and, after the end of her operatic career, performed her husband’s songs with him.
Strauss wrote numerous chamber works, especially in his youth, under the influence of his father, a composer, horn player and conductor, who performed the works of young Richard with his amateur orchestra ‘Wilde Gung’l’. Richard Strauss wrote the Violin Sonata, Op. 18, at the age of 23, by then having already composed symphonies, concertos, piano trios, a piano quartet, a string quartet, a cello sonata and songs. It is Strauss’s only sonata for violin and piano, but he returned to this combination of instruments later, for example in Allegretto, Op. 149, which he wrote near the end of his life, in 1948.
The first movement of the Sonata in ‘heroic’ E-flat major, the key of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), is an extensive sonata form filled with thematic ebullience, with two ‘main’ and two secondary themes. It is characterized by shifts in meter and interweaving of triplets, descending legato, and waltz, while all motifs are also found in the virtuoso coda. The second movement with the ‘improvisational’ theme is a song without words, the middle part of which is marked by piano scales and muted violin arabesques. Strauss’s biographers have interpreted the lyrical aspect of the second movement as an expression of Strauss’s intimate feelings, as he met his future wife Pauline that year. Strauss even allowed the Andante cantabile, which was a popular parlour piece around 1900, to be published separately. At the end, a solemn, darker introduction heralds the exuberant and enthralling finale.
Musicologist Wilhelm Altmann described the Sonata as ‘a sparklingly witty piece’, while English music patron Walter Wilson Cobbett called it ‘a riot of musical colour’. German director and opera impresario Fritz Schuh wrote that the Sonata ‘stands out from previous chamber works for its freedom of chromatic modulations and occasional orchestral approach’ and that it pointed to the culmination of Strauss’s symphonic work yet to come.
French violinist Renaud Capuçon is firmly established internationally as a major soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. He is known and loved for his poise, depth of tone and virtuosity, and he works with the world’s most prestigious orchestras, artists, venues, and festivals.
Born in Chambéry in 1976, Renaud Capuçon began his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris at the age of fourteen, winning numerous awards during his five years there. Following this, Capuçon moved to Berlin to study with Thomas Brandis and Isaac Stern and was awarded the Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1997, Claudio Abbado invited him to become concertmaster of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, which he led for three summers, working with conductors including Boulez, Ozawa, Welser-Möst and Claudio Abbado.
Since then, Capuçon has established himself as a soloist at the very highest level. He performs with leading orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Boston Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Filarmonica della Scala, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. His many conductor relationships include Barenboim, Bychkov, Dénève, Dohnanyi, Dudamel, Eschenbach, Gergiev, Haitink, Harding, Long Yu, Paavo Järvi, Nelsons, Nézet-Seguin, Roth, Shani, Ticciati, van Zweden. In the 22/23 season, Capuçon made his Carnegie Hall debut to fervent ovation in a play-direct performance with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Highlights in the upcoming season include a return to the Chicago Symphony under Semyon Bychkov for performances of Saint Saëns’ Violin Concerto No. 3.
A great commitment to chamber music has led him to collaborations with Argerich, Angelich, Barenboim, Bashmet, Bronfman, Buniatishvili, Grimaud, Hagen, Levit, Ma, Pires, Trifonov, Yo-Yo Ma and Yuja Wang, as well as with his brother, cellist Gautier Capuçon, and have taken him, among others, to the Berlin, Lucerne, Verbier, Aix-enProvence, Roque d’Anthéron, San Sebastián, Stresa, Salzburg, Edinburgh International and Tanglewood festivals. Capuçon has also represented France at some of the world’s most prestigious international events: he has performed with YoYo Ma under the Arc de Triomphe for the official commemoration of Armistice Day in the presence of more than 80 heads of state and played for world leaders at the G7 Summit in Biarritz.
Capuçon is the Artistic Director of three festivals; the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad since 2016, the Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence, which he founded in 2013, and, most recently, the Rencontres Musicales Festival in Evian from 2023. Since 2021, he has also been the Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.
Capuçon has built an extensive discography and, up until recently, recorded exclusively with Erato/Warner Classics. In September 2022, Capuçon announced his new partnership with Deutsche Grammophon, and two months later released his first album with the yellow label – a collection of violin sonatas performed with Martha Argerich and recorded at his Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence. Recent releases with Erato include a recording of Elgar’s violin concerto and violin sonata with the LSO conducted by Simon Rattle, an album with Guillaume Bellom featuring an extensive range of shorter works arranged for violin and piano, and, most recently, recordings of violin concerti by Vivaldi and Saint-George with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. His album 'Au Cinema', featuring much loved selections from film music, was released to critical acclaim in October 2018.
Capuçon plays the Guarneri del Gesù 'Panette' (1737), which belonged to Isaac Stern. In June 2011, he was appointed 'Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite' and in March 2016 'Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur' by the French Government.
Guillaume Bellom has one of the most unique paths to success of his generation, pursuing studies not just in piano but also in violin, all the way from the conservatoire of his hometown Besançon to the Conservatoire of Paris. It was in this institution that he decided to fully develop his activity as a pianist, under the influence of striking personalities such as Nicholas Angelich and Hortense Cartier-Bresson.
In 2015, Guillaume was highly acclaimed as a finalist at the Clara Haskil competition, aptly named after the great Romanian pianist who herself was known for also playing the violin. His performance was awarded the "Modern Times” prize, for the best interpretation of a set work by Thomas Adés. That same year, he won the first prize at the Épinal international competition and became laureate of the "L' Or du Rhin” foundation, before winning the Thierry Scherz prize at the "Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad” the next year. In 2017, he was nominated at the Victoires de la Musique in the "instrumental soloist revelations” category. He is also an associate artist at the Singer-Polignac Foundation in Paris since 2018.
Guillaume has performed as a soloist with the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National d'Ile de France, the Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne, the Orchestre National de Montpellier, and the National Orchestra of Lorraine, under the baton of Jacques Mercier, Christian Zacharias, Pierre Dumoussaud, and Marzena Diakun. Deeply interested by chamber music, his mastery of a vast repertoire has made him a much sought-after musical partner, performing with artists such as with artists such as Renaud Capuçon, Paul Meyer, Yan Levionnois, Victor Julien-Laferrière, Ismël Margain, Anne Göckel, Adrien Bellom, and the Hermès, Girard, and Hanson quartets. He regularly performs in numerous festivals across the world, including the Festival international de piano de la Roque d'Anthéron, the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence, the Piano aux Jacobins, the Festival de Pâques and L"Août Musical in Deauville, the Festival des Arcs, the Shanghai Concert Hall,the Bombay Royal Opera, and the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.
His discography notably includes two albums dedicated to four-hands pieces by Schubert (rewarded by the prestigious "ffff” of French magazine Télérama) and Mozart, recorded with Ismaël Margain for Aparté, a cd with cellist Yan Levionnois ("ffff” of Télérama), released in 2017 for Fondamenta, and a solo cd around Schubert, Haydn, and Debussy, released in 2017 as well by Claves.
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Renaud Capuçon (c) Warner
Guillaume Bellom (c) Jean-Baptiste Millot
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