French Cello Sonatas (Vol. 4): Magnard & Vierne

Description

Albéric Magnard and Louis Vierne: Two French masters of the cello sonata.The beginning of the 20th century was a period of transition for French music. While Impressionism was gaining ground with Debussy and Ravel, some composers remained faithful to the ideals of structural clarity and expressive depth inherited from the Romantic tradition.Among them were Albéric Magnard and Louis Vierne, two artists whose sonatas for cello and piano, composed in 1910, are monuments of French chamber music and offer both contrasting and complementary visions of their era.Albéric Magnard, born in Paris in 1865, was a student of Dubois, Guiraud, Massenet, and D'Indy at the Paris Conservatory, and frequented the circle of César Franck. In 1896, he became a professor at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. From 1904, he settled in the countryside, on his estate at Manoir des Fontaines in Baron (Oise), where he died in 1914, shot by German troops while trying to defend the property. His last chamber work, the Sonata for cello and piano op. 20, ranks among his most important compositions. Composed between 1908 and 1910, it is structured in four movements, like all his chamber works, demonstrating his attachment to his German contemporaries and opposing French Impressionism.Louis Vierne (1870-1937), a student of César Franck and Widor, became a renowned organist. He held the most important position of organist at Notre-Dame de Paris, where he was famous for his improvisations. As a composer, he belongs to the post-Wagnerian language of his time: complex counterpoint, dense chromatic harmonies, and a spiritual and exalted atmosphere characterize his works.Vierne's Sonata for cello and piano in B minor, op. 27, composed in 1910, offers a fascinating counterpoint to Magnard's work. While Magnard favors formal clarity, Vierne gives himself over to lyrical breadth and harmonic audacity.This is the fourth volume of "French Cello Sonatas," performed by Marina Tarasova and Ivan Sokolov. Their previous recordings have been unanimously praised by critics. The sonatas of Boëllmann and Widor deserve the best possible interpretations, and that is precisely what Marina Tarasova and Ivan Sokolov deliver. The full, richly colored sound of Tarasova's cello expresses itself with a magnificent voice, while Sokolov's piano provides the basso continuo in elaborate counterpoint, always in perfect harmony with the cello. (Fanfare)