Ensemble Des ÉquilibresBrahms today...

Records 18.05.2021

The violinist Agnès Pyka, artistic director of the ensemble Des Équilibres, commissioned works inspired by the three Brahms violin sonatas from Philippe Hersant, Nicolas Bacri and Graciane Finzi in 2018. This CD is the testimony of this musical encounter, served by a high-flying interpretation, alongside the pianist Laurent Wagschal.

The theme of Brahms's Regenlied , , which pervades the last movement of his Sonata No. 1, Op. 78 (1878), commonly known as the Regensonate ("Rain Sonata"), also gives its name to Philippe Hersant 's piece and immediately inspires the long chromatic introduction for solo violin that opens the disc. This theme is varied many times in the course of a highly expressive journey, led entirely by a virtuoso and lyrical violin, often a soloist, which regularly soars into the upper register and plays a number of techniques, double strings, harmonic shifts, tremolos and pizzicatos. Throughout the various sonic stages of this nearly twenty-minute composition, the piano's role is to colour its violin melody with atmospheres that are more impressionistic than romantic, sometimes passing through iridescent accompaniments, tremors in crystalline high notes, solid chorale-like harmonic columns and arpeggiated counterpoint.

Nicolas Bacri's In Anlehnung an Brahms ('In the Spirit of Brahms') opens in a completely different mood, with violin and piano in more open and equal dialogue. The mysterious harmonies and expressive chromaticism of the introduction, interspersed with silences, soon take on a romantic ardour and ardour. This first part seems rather far removed from the serene climate of the Sonata No. 2 , Op. 100 (1886), composed on the shores of Lake Thun(Thuner-Sonata), a work that Clara Schumann cherished above all others by Brahms. But the fiery flames of the initial blaze fall back on the more refined and profoundly lyrical atmosphere of a calmer central section, more in tune with its source of inspiration, which concludes with a more contrasting final sequence, between fierce agitation and fleeting dreamlike moments, whose coda brings down all the tension.

Graziane Finzi chooses to pay homage to Brahms' Sonata No. 3 (1888) through four short movements, echoing its classical structure. The composer weaves her own sonata Winternacht ("Winter Night") from short thematic extracts borrowed from the model, pieces of memory that the listener may or may not recognise. His sound poetry, with its melancholic and dreamy nocturnal flavours, is irresistible. This is particularly true of the slow movements "Adagio" (2) and "Cantabile" (3), where the subtle piano writing dominates the texture, offering a journey of a thousand colours, accompanied by discreet touches of violin. This work is the richest on the disc.

The sonata for violin and piano could be considered a distant relic of a bygone era, when two musical heroes from an obsolete past crossed swords in a great sentimental and virtuoso outpouring. Hersant, Bacri and Finzi, by adopting this model through this homage to Brahms, know how to touch us deeply while proving that our era can still enjoy and renew this romantic model. Agnès Pyka and Laurent Wagschal are never in the demonstration business, but they sublimate with as much subtlety as commitment these scores dedicated to them.

Guillaume Kosmicki

Record at Klarthe Records

An interview with Agnès Pyka and Laurent Wagschal on Classica to read here.
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