Montalbetti: Solos, a Personal Diary in Music François-Frederic Guy

• Eric Montalbetti (1968-): Trois etudes apres Kandinsky for Solo Piano
• 1Deux traits noirs01:04
• 2De lobscurite des spheres a leur eclat - After Yellow-Red-Blue02:08
• 3Furieusement amoureux - After Lyrical01:18
• Esprit tendre for Solo Oboe
• 4Esprit tendre for Solo Oboe06:56
• Sonata for Solo Violin
• 5First Movement02:02
• 6Second Movement02:14
• 7Third Movement05:25
• 8Fourth Movement02:12
• Un herbier pour la vie for Solo Cello
• 9Elegie08:18
• 10Labsent03:00
• 11Bicinium08:49
• Cinq formants for Solo Clarinet
• 12Formant I01:03
• 13Formant II01:06
• 14Formant III01:20
• 15Formant IV04:24
• 16Formant V06:33
• Priere de lange gardien for Solo Horn
• 17Priere de lange gardien for Solo Horn08:42
• Total Runtime01:06:34

Info for Montalbetti: Solos, a Personal Diary in Music

This album of ‘solos’ for various different instruments constitutes the composer’s ‘personal diary’ over some twenty-five years. Eric Montalbetti, who was artistic director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France from 1996 to 2014, long kept his music a secret, composing for himself, as if he were keeping a diary. Yet he had been composing since the age of eleven, while also learning the piano and the organ. He was taught by Paul Méfano and Michaël Levinas, and attended masterclasses with George Benjamin and Magnus Lindberg. In 1990 he received prizes from the Sacem and the Menuhin Foundation for his Violin Sonata. He seeks in music a language capable of expressing our most varied emotions: vital energy, interrogation, anxiety, mourning, rage, hope, prayer, love, gratitude. Trois études après Kandinsky for piano, Esprit tendre for oboe (a tribute to Helen and Elliott Carter), the Sonata for solo violin in four movements, a Suite for cello, five Formants for solo clarinet, and La Prière de l’Ange gardien for solo horn make up this program, which is performed by some of the finest soloists on the current French scene.

Francois-Frederic Guy, piano (on tracks 1-3)
Tedi Papavrami, violin (on tracks 5-8)
Marc Coppey, cello (on tracks 9-11)
Nicholas Baldeyrou, clarinet (on tracks 12-16)
Jean-Louis Capezzali, oboe (on track 4)
David Guerrier, horn (on track 17)

François-Frederic Guy
pursues an international career alongside the leading conductors, among them Philippe Jordan, Kent Nagano, Daniel Harding and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and with prestigious orchestras such as the Wiener Symphoniker, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.

His intense curiosity about the music of his time leads him to perform many contemporary composers and to give world premieres regularly.

Since 2012, he has often directed ensembles from the piano, including the Liège Royal Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Orchestre National des Pays de Loire, the Orchestre National de Lorraine and the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, with which he earned triumphal acclaim at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in January 2020 for the opening concert of the theatre’s Beethoven Year.

Future orchestral projects will take him to London, Lille, Paris, Cannes, Tokyo and Hamburg with the conductors Sakari Oramo, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Benjamin Lévy and Jurien Hempel, and to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich with Philippe Jordan.

He will also appear as pianist and conductor with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Limoges, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Sinfonia Varsovia.

Booklet for Montalbetti: Solos, a Personal Diary in Music