With Chin Chin, the SpiriTango Quartet continues its exploration of tango in a resolutely open direction, at the crossroads of the heritage of Astor Piazzolla, contemporary writing and improvisation. After a first album devoted to the master of Nuevo Tango, this second opus celebrates both the four years of existence of the ensemble and a strong desire to expand the repertoire, by bringing together Argentine tradition, jazz, film music and contemporary writing. The collective energy of the quartet, nourished by demanding chamber work, irrigates the entire program.

Piazzolla's works occupy a central place, but always revisited through original arrangements made by the musicians themselves. The concerted treatment of these pieces allows each instrument to speak as a soloist, revealing in turn virtuosity, lyricism and a sense of rhythm. Chin Chin, Concierto para Quinteto, Escualo, Kicho, Kicho, Tangata or Libertango thus become living fields of experimentation, where dialogued writing and the freedom of the instrumental gesture renew listening without ever betraying the spirit of tango.

The program is also open to three contemporary Argentine composers, Luis Caruana, Ramiro Gallo and Andres Linetzky, as well as to the Belgian composer Frédéric Devreese. This choice affirms the identity of the SpiTango Quartet, a group committed to the creation and defense of new works. Carried by Fanny Azzuro on the piano, Thomas Chedal on the accordion, Fanny Gallois on the violin and Benoît Levesque on the double bass, Chin Chin is both a virtuoso fireworks display and an invitation to share, a musical toast to the joy of playing together and to the vitality of tango today.

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This album brings together three piano cycles around the theme of the seasons. It combines The Seasons op. 37-bis by Piotr Ilitch Tchaikovsky, composed in 1875 and published in 1876, the Four Seasons of Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla in a piano version produced in 2013 by Marcelo Nisinman, and the Four Last Seasons of Lisbon by Eurico Carrapatoso, composed between June 2013 and June 2014. The interpretation is provided by the pianist Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro.

Tchaikovsky's Seasons are in the form of twelve pieces corresponding to the months of the year, inspired by scenes from Russia in the second half of the 19th century. Commissioned by Nikolaï Bernard, they offer a personal vision of the annual cycle, centered on the idea of home and the continuity of life. The cycle includes Fireside, Carnival, Song of the Lark, Barcarolle, La Chasse, Troika and Noël, among others, and is the Russian composer's most popular solo piano work.

Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, originally written between 1965 and 1970 for a tango ensemble, are presented here in a piano transcription by Marcelo Nisinman, recorded for the first time. The Last Four Seasons of Lisbon by Eurico Carrapatoso are inspired by the city of Lisbon and its cultural and historical landscape, evoking winter on the Tagus, a waltz linked to the Carnation Revolution, a summer march and an autumnal fado.

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This album is devoted to two concert works by Jean-Charles Gandrille: the Violin Concerto and the Minimalist-Concerto. The Violin Concerto, composed between 2004 and 2011, consists of two parts. The first, Par-Delà, vers l'Azur..., designed in 2004, was written as part of the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium composition competition. The second part, composed in 2011, includes an interlude and an Aka dance, inspired by the polyrhythms of the dances of the Aka Pygmies of Central Africa. The work was created in March 2012 in Doha, Qatar.

The Minimalist-Concerto, composed in 2012, combines piano and organ as solo instruments in dialogue with the orchestra. This work is part of a reflection led by Jean-Charles Gandrille on the place of rhythm and repetition in his musical language, nourished by listening to American minimalist composers while maintaining harmonic references from the French tradition. The concerto was premiered in March 2013 in Doha, also with the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.

The recording features Rami Khalifé on piano, Jean-Charles Gandrille on organ, Omar Chen Guey on violin, under the direction of Alkis Baltas for the Minimalist-Concerto and Thomas Kalb for the Violin Concerto. Both works are performed by the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra and were recorded at the Opera House in Doha. This album testifies to the close link between the composer and this orchestra, as well as to the importance given to the organ in Jean-Charles Gandrille's orchestral writing.

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This album is dedicated to the twenty-four Preludes op. 28 by Frédéric Chopin, performed by the pianist Maxence Pilchen. This cycle occupies a central place in the composer's work and brings together short, highly contrasting pieces, organized according to a succession of related major and minor keys, following a principle inherited from Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, which Chopin worked on a daily basis.

The genesis of the Preludes remains partially unknown, but their completion is linked to Chopin's stay in Majorca during the winter of 1838-1839, carried out in the company of George Sand and his children. In it, Chopin reworked some pieces already written and composed others, before sending the manuscript to his friend Julian Fontana on January 22, 1839 for the first French edition, published in June 1839 by Catelin with a dedication to Camille Pleyel. Chopin never performed all of the Preludes in public concerts.

The recording was made in June 2014 at the Villefavard Farm, a place known for its acoustics. Maxence Pilchen approaches these works from a thorough work on the musical text, taking into account the fact that Chopin composed for his favorite instrument, the piano, and by also focusing on 19th century instruments, in particular Pleyel pianos, which the composer considered to be a reference. This disc is Maxence Pilchen's first recording dedicated to Chopin.

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This record originated in Mein Freund ist mein und ich bin sein by Johann-Christoph Bach, a seminal work around which the entire program is structured. Inspired by the Song of Songs, this music explores the multiple faces of desire, fervor, and love, in a constant tension between sensuality, spirituality, and interiority. Caroline Howald designed this recording as a continuous breath, a journey through the energy of Eros, where sacred music is nourished by a deeply human intensity.

Around Johann-Christoph Bach, the program brings together works by August Kühnel, Johann-Hermann Schein, Christoph Bernhard, Johann Rosenmüller, Dietrich Buxtehude and Jean-Dominique Krynen, whose Zu Gott sollst du nicht schreien was composed especially for this recording. The choices of instrumentation, ornamentation, and rubato reflect the contrasts of amorous desire, supplication, joy, and lamentation, while emphasizing the diversity of tones and the clarity of musical discourse.

The Isabella d'Este Ensemble brings together Caroline Howald, Chiara Banchini, Chiara Banchini, Michiko Takahashi, Maria Kondrashkova, Cécile Granger, Ariane Maurette, Robin Pharo, Robin Pharo, Ronald Martin Alonso, Ronald Martin Alonso, Ronald Martin Alonso, Noëlle Spieth and Charles-Edouard Fantin. Together, they offer a deeply embodied reading of this 17th century Germanic repertoire, where voices and instruments merge in the same expressive quest, in the service of beauty, listening and inner life.

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En Suite was born from the complicity between two sister instruments of French Baroque, the viola da gamba and the theorbo, whose sonic intimacy is at the heart of this recording. Despite different techniques, one rubbed and the other plucked, these instruments share a closely linked history, from Spanish Vihuela at the end of the 15th century to their common rise in European courts. This historical and organological proximity nourishes a refined dialogue, based on the nobility of the stamp and the richness of expression.

The program revolves around the works of Marin Marais, Sainte Colombe and Robert de Visée, major figures of the golden age of viola da gamba in France. Marin Marais' suites and characterful pieces reveal an exceptionally varied style of writing, combining melodic singing, French ornamentation and polyphonic virtuosity. The tribute paid to Sainte Colombe, master and inspiration of Marais, recalls the importance of his technical innovations and his decisive influence on solo bass viola playing, while the works of Robert de Visée illustrate the close link between court music, dance and the art of arrangement.

In this recording, Romina Lischka on viola da gamba and Sofie Vanden Eynde on theorbo revive this sound universe with particular attention paid to the eloquence, colors and rhythms inherited from dance. Recorded at Franc-Waret in May 2014, En Suite offers a sensitive immersion in a repertoire where music, freed from its choreographic function, becomes above all an art of listening, nuance and inner expression.

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In Soliloque, guitarist Sébastien Llinares offers an intimate journey into the heart of French music of the 20th century, giving voice to works by Henri Sauguet, Pierre Wissmer, Francis Poulenc and Albert Roussel. Designed as an internal dialogue, this album brings together pieces where the guitar becomes a space of confidence, revealing a subtle, sensitive and deeply expressive writing, far from any demonstrative virtuosity.

Through the works of Henri Sauguet and Pierre Wissmer, Sébastien Llinares highlights two complementary aesthetics: on the one hand, a writing marked by melodic clarity, poetic simplicity and a form of lyrical neoclassicism; on the other, a more architectural thought, nourished by counterpoint and rhythmic tensions, where the guitar deploys an almost orchestral dimension. These pages, which are rarely recorded, find a new breath here, true to their spirit while affirming the uniqueness of the interpreter.

Soliloquy is thus an act of creation as well as of transmission. By fully engaging in these repertoires not originally written for guitar, Sébastien Llinares affirms a strong artistic vision, where the instrument becomes a medium of an inner, free and living language. This recording highlights the richness of a musical heritage that is still too discreet, while underlining the essential role of the performer in the rediscovery and reinvention of these works.

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Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Württemberg Sonatas Wq 49 were among the founding works of his keyboard catalog and marked a decisive step in the evolution of the sonata in the middle of the 18th century. Composed in Berlin and Teplice between 1742 and 1744, these six sonatas bear witness to a profoundly innovative language, where the unity of affects gives way to a succession of contrasting climates, guided by the search for eloquence and inner expression.

On the harpsichord, Bruno Procopio highlights this aesthetic of sensitivity dear to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, based on the sincerity of speech and the ability of the keyboard to evoke intense emotions. The sudden breaks, the expressive silences, the ample melodic lines and the density of polyphonic writing give these sonatas an almost improvised dimension, where the music seems to spring directly from the movement of the soul.

Recorded at the Ferme de Villefavard, in a place recognized for the exceptional quality of its acoustics, this album recreates all the expressive richness of this repertoire that is pivotal between Baroque and emerging modernity. Through this interpretation, Bruno Procopio brings to mind works that, far from being simple living room pieces, stand out as a musical manifesto, already announcing classicism while affirming a singular and deeply personal voice.

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The organ concertos by Georg Friedrich Handel and the Harpsichord Pieces in Concerts by Jean-Philippe Rameau are among the most original works in the keyboard repertoire of the 18th century. Designed to surprise, entertain and impress, these books reveal two virtuoso composers, improvisers and inventors, capable of renewing forms while interacting with the instruments and sound spaces of their time.

With Handel, the organ concerto was born as part of London oratorios, giving the interpreter a wide freedom of improvisation and rewriting. This flexibility of writing finds ideal expression on the grand organ Dom Bedos in the Dom Bedos Grand Organ at the Abbey of Sainte-Croix in Bordeaux, a monumental instrument whose fullness, depth and 32-foot interplay meet the power and breadth described by the composer's contemporaries.

Faced with him, Rameau, a brilliant harpsichordist and organist, did not leave any works specifically written for the organ. His Harpsichord Pieces in Concerts, unique in his chamber music catalog, nevertheless lend themselves naturally to rewriting and adapting. In this recording, the pieces dialogue freely with the organ and the orchestra, in a French spirit where the instruments merge into a true mixed symphony. The Ensemble Zaïs, directed by Benoît Babel, with Paul Goussot on the organ, offers a lively and inspired reading of this double portrait at the height of Baroque art.

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Song of Glory or Cries of Death explores the French 19th century through its revolutions, utopias and fractures, giving voice to the hymns, political songs and popular poems that accompanied the uprisings of 1830, 1848 and 1871. Around La Marseillaise and its innumerable hijackings, the album gives voice to a story lived from within, that of barricades, social hopes and bloody disappointments.

The Lunaisiens weave a journey where Eugène Pottier, Pierre Dupont, Pierre Dupont, Pierre Dupont, Gustave Leroy, Béranger, Offenbach, Saint-Saëns or Verdi intersect, combining committed songs, opera arias and emblematic pieces. The salon piano and the barrel organ, instruments that are symbolically opposed and then reconciled, embody the tension between the bourgeoisie and the people, scholarly art and street expression.

Designed as a musical chronicle more than as a simple program, this recording restores the political and poetic power of this music that was born to unite, denounce and hope. Song of Glory or Cries of Death questions the function of art in the face of history, and recalls how these songs wanted, above all, to change the world.

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Russian Impulse is the first solo recording by pianist Fanny Azzuro, devoted to three major figures of 20th century Russian music: Sergei Rachmaninov, Sergei Prokofiev and Nikolai Kapustin. Three languages, three contrasting aesthetics, united around the same pianistic energy where rhythmic tension, expressive density and virtuosity are constantly in dialogue. This program highlights a musical Russia marked by exile, modernity and the upheavals of the century.

Rachmaninov's Variations on a Theme by Corelli op. 42 occupy a singular place in his piano work. Composed in 1931 during exile, they deploy a concentrated, meditative and architectural style based on the famous Folia. The restraint of the discourse, the brevity of the variations, and the expressive depth give this score an introspective character, both crepuscular and intensely poetic.

This meditation is matched by the rhythmic and dramatic violence of Prokofiev's Sonata No. 6 op. 82, one of the great “war sonatas”, where motorism, dissonance and expressive tension reflect the brutality of the time. The journey ends with Nikolaï Kapustin's Variations op. 41, a singular synthesis between classical forms and the language of jazz, where swing, formal clarity and virtuosity end the album with a free and luminous pulse. Recorded at the Ferme de Villefavard, Russian Impulse reveals a pianist with a strong identity, capable of bringing heritages into dialogue with a rare coherence.

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Fragments was born from an artistic promise between two musicians committed to the exploration of contemporary repertoire for voice and organ. Their encounter with Claude Ledoux's writing, in 2009 at the Sapporo Concert Hall, marked the starting point of this adventure. The Notizen-Fragmente, composed on texts from his youth by Rainer Maria Rilke, reveal a rare alchemy between the breath of the organ and the human voice, in sensual, introspective and deeply embodied music.

This complicity led Cindy Castillo and Aurélie Franck to continue their dialogue with contemporary creation, by asking Jean-Pierre Deleuze for a new cycle. Here is the absence — Cinq ations en antiphonie is based on texts by Bashô, Jacques Crickillon and Henry de Montherlant, and deploys a poetic writing of great humanity. Alternating contemplation, tension, and silence, the work explores absence, loss, and memory through a refined and intensely expressive musical form.

Bringing together the two notebooks of Notizen-Fragmente by Claude Ledoux and Voici l'absence by Jean-Pierre Deleuze, this album is the result of an artistic partnership based on trust and listening. Recorded on the Kleuker organ designed by Jean Guillou at Notre-Dame des Grâces au Chant d'Oiseau in Brussels, Fragments offers a sound experience where voice and organ respond in a space of spiritual, poetic and resolutely contemporary resonance.

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This program explores the intimate dialogue between music, poetry and Antiquity at the court of Charles de Guise, cardinal of Lorraine, a major figure in French humanism in the 16th century. Inspired by the work of Jeanice Brooks, it highlights a form of sponsorship where music becomes a political, aesthetic and spiritual language, nourished by ancient texts and Renaissance ideals.

The works of Jacques Arcadelt, Pierre Cléreau and the Ferrabosco family revolve around texts by Virgil, Horace, Ovide and the poets of La Pléiade, in particular Pierre de Ronsard and Rémy Belleau. Alternating vocal polyphony, declamation and instrumental accompaniment, the program recreates a sound framework similar to that familiar to the cardinal, where the clarity of the verb and musical expressiveness take precedence over demonstrative virtuosity.

Founded in 2005, Ensemble Enthéos is dedicated to Renaissance music by combining historical research, rhetoric and the meaning of the text. Through this album, the ensemble recreates a humanist aesthetic where music, literature and visual arts participate in the same creative spirit, offering a lively, sensitive and rigorous reading of this rare repertoire.

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In the heart of medieval Catalonia, the Montserrat Monastery was one of the major pilgrimage sites in Christian Europe. At the end of the 14th century, it was to accompany the fervour, joy and sometimes the exaltation of the faithful that a unique manuscript was created, today known as Llibre Vermell de Montserrat. This collection brings together songs intended to be sung and danced in the church and on the square, provided that they remain pious and respectful of the sacred place.

The pieces of Llibre Vermell combine monodies and polyphonies, Latin, Catalan and Occitan, plainsong, Ars nova and forms from popular tradition. Rounds, responsorial choruses and immediately memorable melodies bear witness to a repertoire where the scholar and the layman coexist freely. These songs express less asceticism than the joy of the journey traveled, the fraternity of pilgrims from all walks of life and the collective celebration of the Black Madonna of Montserrat.

Gathered around Bruno Bonhoure and Khaï-dong Luong, La Camera delle Lacrim, with the Jeune Chœur de Dordogne, recreates the living spirit of this music: sung, shared, embodied. The interpretation assumes the stylistic diversity of the manuscript, from festive impulses to darker meditations, such as Ad Mortem Festinamus, evoking medieval dances macabre. This project gives voice to a rare heritage, where music becomes a space for encounter, devotion and collective celebration.

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L'Amante is a vocal and sensory journey into the heart of medieval sacred music, set against contemporary creations written for the Mora Vocis ensemble. Inspired by the Song of Songs, the program explores themes of desire, spiritual quest, and mystical love, in a subtle dialogue between ancient repertoires and contemporary writings. The voice becomes the common thread of a poetic meditation out of time.

Conceived as a true sonic journey, L'Amante unfolds in architectural space, playing with resonances, distances and the memory of places. The female singers of Mora Vocis perform this repertoire from memory, in an approach close to orality, where medieval monodies, ancient polyphonies and contemporary works are mixed. This vocal journey combines pieces by Hildegard von Bingen in particular with compositions by Anne-Marie Deschamps, Jean-Jacques Di Tucci, Daniel Meier, Klaus Huber and Caroline Marçot.

Recorded at night in the Grand Refectory of Fontevraud Abbey, this album benefits from exceptional acoustics that magnify the expressive density of the voices and the almost ritual dimension of the program. L'Amante fully embodies the unique approach of Mora Vocis, where medieval music, contemporary creation and sensory experience intersect. More than just a recording, this album offers immersive, intimate and deeply spiritual listening.

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Addressing Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations with two guitars is both daring and deeply thoughtful. For the Duo Mélisande, formed by Sébastien Llinares and Nicolas Lestoquoy, it is neither a question of recreating a period color nor of competing with the harpsichord, but of looking for what remains, what is resistant to time. This approach, which the performers describe as a “black and white” vision, favors the contrapuntal essence and structure of the work, stripped of any expressive overload.

Transcription is part of a fully Bachian tradition. As Sébastien Llinares and Gilles Cantagrel recall in the libretto, Bach himself has continued to adapt and transform his works according to the instruments available, convinced of the fundamentally abstract nature of his music. The transition from harpsichord to guitar is not a break but a natural transition between two plucked string instruments, allowing greater autonomy of the voices and a new readability of the contrapuntal lines, in a unity of tone that the keyboard cannot offer.

Working as a duo involves a common listening and reflex, specific to chamber music. Without seeking artificial homogeneity, Sébastien Llinares and Nicolas Lestoquoy make their differences live in a subtle balance, allowing variations to gradually inhabit them. This reading renews the perception of a masterpiece often considered intangible and recalls that the vitality of the Goldberg Variations is precisely due to their ability to arouse, generation after generation, new appropriations without ever betraying their profound nature.

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Olivier Messiaen's piano work is one of the absolute peaks of the 20th century repertoire. Through monumental cycles such as Les Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus or the Catalogue d'Oiseaux, Messiaen forges a unique language where rhythmic research, sound color, religious symbolism and religious symbolism and a fascination for birds' songs come together. His piano music acts as a bridge between Debussy's heritage and radical modernity, affirmed in particular in the Four Studies of Rhythm and the famous Mode of Values and Intensities. With rare force, it concentrates all the parameters of a deeply personal and immediately recognizable musical universe.

This first monographic disc by Marie Vermeulin offers a coherent journey through this abundant work, from the Eight Preludes of Youth composed between 1928 and 1929 to the final Petites Esquisses d'Oiseaux written in 1985. Two Views from Les Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus structure this journey, revealing the evolution of Messiaenian language, from the discovery of sound-color to the affirmation of a multicolored musical mysticism, nourished by non-retrogradable rhythms, polymodality and ornithological references. Far from being a simple overview, this program offers an internal and progressive reading of the composer's thoughts.

A performer deeply committed to this universe, Marie Vermeulin approaches this music with technical mastery, a colorist sensitivity and an expressive intensity that are unanimously acclaimed. Winner of the Olivier Messiaen International Competition, she was encouraged in this exploration by Roger Muraro, a major figure in Messiaen interpretation. Recorded at the church of La Grave, the emblematic venue of the Messiaen Festival in the Pays de la Meije, this record restores the entire spiritual, poetic and visionary dimension of a work that continues to fascinate pianists and listeners around the world.

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Published in Paris in 1741, the Harpsichord Pieces in Concerts occupy a singular place in the work of Jean-Philippe Rameau. Composed at the age of full maturity, when Rameau established himself as the undisputed master of French opera, these pages are his unique contribution to chamber music. Designed for concerted harpsichord accompanied by a violin or flute and a viola or second violin, they are at the crossroads of the Italian traditions of the trio sonata and the French aesthetics of character and dance.

In these five concerts, Rameau gives the harpsichord a central and resolutely solo role. Far from a simple continuo, the instrument dialogues on an equal footing with the tops, alternating unison, colorful accompaniment and concerting passages of great virtuosity. Each piece, generally endowed with an evocative title, sketches the portrait of a place, a patron or a musician close to the composer, revealing a refined art of suggestion and a writing of remarkable formal freedom, nourished by Rameau's theatrical experience.

For this recording, Bruno Procopio brings together Patrick Bismuth on violin, François Lazarevitch on German flutes and Emmanuelle Guigues on viola da gamba, around a harpsichord inspired by the Flemish models of the Rückers family, adapted to the French way. This instrumental choice highlights the clarity of speech, the balance of the tones and the expressive richness of these works, complemented by pieces for solo harpsichord from the Nouvelles suites of harpsichord pieces. The ensemble thus reveals all the modernity and the power of invention of a composer who has never ceased to fascinate his contemporaries as well as the following generations.

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