Satie, Erik

Avant-Dernieres Pensees

Label: Harmonia Mundi Country: Austria

"With this recording, Alexandre Tharaud aims to serve justice to Erik Satie -- the real Erik Satie. Chock full of surprises and humor, Tharaud strives to reveal the coherence between Satie's life and music. The first CD is devoted to piano solo works. The second offers a selection of duos, many of which are world premiere recordings. Featuring well-known artists such as chanson singer Juliette, violinist Isabelle Faust, pianist Eric le Sage, trumpet player David Guerrier and tenor Jean Delescluse, this album will also include a private Internet access code to listen to bonus tracks and discover more about Satie's life and work."-Harmonia Mundi

"My aim in these two discs has been to offer the richest possible panorama of Satie's piano and chamber music, ranging over his whole lifetime. . . . Immersed in the world of Satie, we were touched, often deeply moved by the trust he shows in his interpreters."-Alexandre Tharaud

"Alexandre Tharaud's first solo piano recording for Harmonia Mundi was of harpsichord suites by Rameau, one of the recording events of 2001. After this international success, he gave recitals in the leading concert halls of Europe (the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Cité de la Musique in Paris, the South Bank in London, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Bern Casino, the Philharmonic halls of Cologne, Essen and Cracow), North and South America (Washington, Buenos Aires), and Asia, where he tours regularly. He has been invited to appear at such festivals as the BBC Proms in London, La Roque d'Anthéron, Schleswig-Holstein, and the December Nights Festival in Moscow.

Alexandre Tharaud has performed as a soloist with major orchestras in France (Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National de Bordeaux-Aquitaine, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse) and abroad (Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra) under the direction of Yutaka Sado, Jean Fournet, Georges Prêtre, Stéphane Denève, Claus Peter Flor, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Marc Minkowski, and Matthias Pintscher.Alexandre Tharaud also devotes a large part of his activity to chamber music. His recording of Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata with the cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras received unanimous critical acclaim. An enthusiastic advocate of the music of his own time and dedicatee of many new works, he gave the first performances of Thierry Pécou's cycle Outre-Mémoire and the same composer's concerto L'Oiseau innumérable (released on harmonia mundi in May 2008). His recital programme 'Hommages à Rameau', interspersing the movements of the Suite in A with tributes to the eighteenth-century master by living composers, toured widely in Europe and will be followed in 2008 by a Hommage à Couperin - another composer honoured by a recent recording, issued in 2007."-Harmonia Mundi