Yuu: Gentleness And Melancholy

Description

"Music for a while – shall all your cares beguile." In this famous air, Purcell invokes the power of music that soothes – for a moment – our pains and sufferings. But do we really wish for this soothing? Or do we prefer to cultivate our melancholy, alongside Michel Lambert: "No, I do not sing to charm my sadness, it is rather to maintain it"? It is the funereal sweetness of the viola that Bach associates with the death of Christ in the St. John Passion. Many composers, like him, have chosen this instrument to evoke mourning. The pieces recorded on this album are set within a framework of melancholic music, just as the Japanese character (Yuu) expresses the gentleness of "a person who stands beside someone who is sad." Through these melancholic tunes, the Japanese violist Kaori Uemura makes the viola sing to nurture, but also to console sadness.