COCHEREAU

The Centenary - Unreleased Recordings
SOCD409

On 9 July 2024, the year marking the 40th anniversary of his death which occurred on the night of 5-6 March 1984, Pierre Cochereau would have turned 100. On the eve of his death, the man was manifestly exhausted by an overabundance of work, but the musician was at his peak: the final tracks of this Disc du Centenaire attest intensely to that, making dizzy anyone tempted to project himself into a sort of musical uchronia of a Cochereau surviving himself. If…
Michel Roubinet

LABRIC PLAYS WIDOR’S 7TH & 8TH

Epilogue of the Complete Symphonies
SOCD407/8

For quite some time now, Yvette and I have continuously striven to rescue the recorded legacy of Pierre Labric from oblivion. To pursue this indispensable memory work there still lacked the Widor symphonies, recorded in 1971 and first released in the United States by the Musical Heritage Society. This LP set was quickly sold out and subsequently became the object of pirate transfers. The American edition suffering from a mediocre pressing, we long hesitated in using it up to the day the miracle occurred: informed of our problems, a Rouen doctor informed us that he had just acquired at auction (!) a fair number of tapes from the original collection. Thus, fifty years after their recording (in which I was allowed to take a modest part), we found ourselves in a position to give life to the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, these twin compositions hatched the same year (1887).
This reissue can only delight this prestigious musician who celebrates his 102nd birthday this year 2023.
François Carbou

CHORUS

Florentino Calvo & Ensemble MG21
SOCD401

As we approach the 15th anniversary of our existence, it seemed important to us to return to the studio - but why and with what programme? Today, our repertoire boasts nearly fifty lovely works, fruits of our encounters and companionship with contemporary composers.
Perusing this catalogue, a ridgeline emerged with, as contours, the common filiations existing between certain works and so-called popular or folk music. These could be described more globally by the term ‘pop’, whether they are traditional or indeed rock. Some of them pay tribute to emblematic figures such as Brubeck, Hendrix or Piazzolla.
Ensemble MG21 will soon be 15 years old, a fine age – and it is perhaps not a coincidence – that is suitable to celebrate with the sound of this pop music that bears in it the ardor and nostalgia... of eternal youth.
Florentino Calvo

A TRIBUTE TO THE MILONGA

Christelle Abinasr, piano
SOCD406

The word milonga, Argentine in origin, can have several meanings, all of which are related to music. The first meaning refers to a ball, featuring a certain type of tango, while the milonga pampeana is a typical tango-like dance, to be found in Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina. By extension, the Argentine milonga defines a style of dance and music related to flamenco. The programme that Christelle Abinasr has chosen for this recital is therefore imbued both with the radiant joy inherent in this type of music and with melancholy – at times diffuse and at times extrovert, as though self-regenerating – that can verge on the tragic. All this is nourished by a generous lyricism, tempered by a closely observed formal framework.
Lionel Pons

FOU TS’ONG

Live in Concert
SOCD402

When the young Fou Ts’ong won Third Prize at the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 1955, he was only 21 years old and created a real sensation and astonishment – to the degree that the jury was so impressed by his personality that they awarded him a special ‘Mazurka Prize’ for his remarkable interpretation of these pieces that are so characteristic of the composer.
What strikes with this musician, rich with the double culture Asian and Western, when listening to these precious taped archives preserved at the INA, is his playing; playing that is absolutely natural. It is the playing of an authentic, totally sincere artist who was quite simply himself.
Yvette Carbou

YVONNE LEFÉBURE

Unissued Recordings, Volume 5
SOCD398/99

This is not a swansong... just barely an “Au revoir” to the great French pianist whose recordings we had the tremendous privilege of producing. Seeking to perpetuate her memory since her death in 1986, I have drawn extensively on the Lefébure collection at the INA (National Audiovisual Institute), but did not imagine discovering even more gems thanks in fact to a series of broadcasts initiated by Rémy Stricker (her former student), titled What do We Know About Music?, a sort of panorama of piano literature. This manna constitutes the primary source of the programme presented here. We naturally find major works by her favorite composers but we never tire of hearing them, so much does the pianist, whose standards are never achieved, give us spontaneous versions of the moment, always different... And here we understand all the better the dilemma between the musician and interpreter.
Yvette Carbou