Avec Elles

Description

Each of the works on this recording was either composed or inspired by a woman. It features Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944) and her Concertino, "a piece that has followed me for years and is a summary of her immense talent," says Mathilde Calderini, Claude Arrieu (1903-1990), a student of Marguerite Long and Paul Dukas, Mel Bonis (1858-1937), as well as the young composer Lise Borel (born in 1993), to whom Mathilde Calderini commissioned a piece – titled Miroir – created in 2023 with Aurèle Marthan, the pianist on this recording and a long-time collaborator. The famous nymph Syrinx by Debussy and a transcription of La Fille aux cheveux de lin are also on the program, along with his Six épigraphes antiques, inspired by the Chansons de Bilitis, named after an ancient... and fictional poetess. Composed in 1957, Francis Poulenc's Sonata is "undoubtedly one of the most beautiful pieces written for flute and piano," according to the French flutist. The work is the result of a commission from the American pianist and patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, who also did much for composers like Ravel, Stravinsky, and Barber.