Catalogue

Summary:

“A beautiful disc, this, its message one of gentle longing and nostalgia, though the playing is anything but sentimental.” – Gramophone (Editor’s Choice)

Philippe Graffin provided one of Avie’s landmark releases, the world-premiere recording of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto. He returns with a more intimate but equally innovative disc devoted to works from his homeland. The figureheads of French impression – Debussy and Ravel – are paired with Impressions by the revelatory Romanian George Enescu, for whom Paris was like a second home.

Graffin, a multiple Gramophone Editor’s Choice artist, offers some popular melodies in unfamiliar guises. A trio of Debussy miniatures – Minstrels, Il Pleure dans mon Coeur, and La fille aux cheveux de lin – are heard in arrangements by Hungarian violinist Arthur Hartmann, a close friend of the composer. Ravel’s Tzigane is heard here with the original instrument it was written for, the prepared-piano sounding lutheal, using the last known instrument (from 1922) which is housed in the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels.

Tracklist:

GEORGE ENESCU (1881–1955)
Impressions d’enfance, Op. 28 (22:01)
1. I. Ménétrier
2. II. Vieux Mendiant
3. III. Ruisselet Au Fond Du Jardin
4. IV. L’oiseau En Cage Et Le Coucou Au Mur
5. V. Chanson Pour Bercer
6. VI. Grillon
7. VII. Lune À Travers Les Vitres
8. VIII. Vent Dans La Cheminee
9. IX. Tempête Au-Dehors, Dans La Nuit
10. X. Lever De Soleil

MAURICE RAVEL (1875–1937)
11. Tzigane – Rapsodie de concert for violin and luthéal (original version) (10:41)
12. Sonata, Op. posthumous (12:37)

CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
13. Nocturne et Scherzo (re-adaptation by Phillipe Graffin) (4:11)
14. Il pleure dans mon Coeur (trans. A Hartmann, 1908 and 1943) (3:04)
15. La fille aux cheveux de lin (trans. A Hartmann, 1910) (2:27)
16. Minstrels (trans. Debussy, 1914) (2:22)

Violin Sonata (13:14)
17. I. Allegro Vivo
18. II. Intermède: Fantasque Et Léger
19. III. Finale: Très Animé

20. Beau Soir (trans. A Hartmann, 1941) (2:14)

Total duration: 73:16

Recorded 4 & 5 September 2004, at Doopsegezinde Kerk, Deventer
6 September 2004 (track 11), at Musical Instrument Museum, Brussels
Recording Producer and Sound Engineer: Tom Peeters