Various Composers - Les Six & Satie (Pascal & Ami Rogé)

Information

• (01) L'Album des Six
• (07) Georges Auric - Valse
• (08) Georges Auric - Cinq bagatelles
• (13) Louis Durey - Deux Piéces pour piano à quatre mains, Op. 7
• (15) Arthur Honegger - Trois Contrepoints: I. Prélude
• (16) Arthur Honegger - Pastorale d'été
• (17) Darius Milhaud - Scaramouche
• (20) Francis Poulenc - Capriccio (d'aprés Le Bal masqué)
• (21) Germaine Tailleferre - Jeux de Plein Air
• (23) Germaine Tailleferre - Valse lente
• (24) Germaine Tailleferre - Intermezzo
• (25) Erik Satie - Parade

Pascal & Ami Rogé, piano
Date: 2020
Label: Onyx
http://www.onyxclassics.com/cddetail.php?CatalogueNumber=ONYX%204219

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Review

The group of young French composers known as Les Six came together in the early 20th century in negative reaction to weighty German romanticism and a lot more besides. Their music, in contrast, is spare, airy, witty, sardonic and – unless you’re not in the mood, in which case wait till you are – irresistibly chirpy.

The French husband-and-wife piano duo Pascal and Ami Rogé have compiled an album of short and longer works by each of Les Six: George Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Germaine Tailleferre. Poulenc’s sparkling Capriccio and Tailleferre’s dreamy Jeux de plein air stand out; Auric and Durey, their names less well remembered, leave a fainter mark. Once in your head, Milhaud’s gleeful Scaramouche suite will never leave. (Listeners to Jess Gillam’s Radio 3 programme This Classical Life will recognise its theme tune, the Brasileira.)

The Rogés, experts at this repertoire, delight in the quirky rhythmic games and breathless, endless charm. The bonus, a stiffener to the levity, is the piano 4-hands version of Satie’s ballet Parade (1917), composed for Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, with designs by Picasso and a scenario by Cocteau: a slice of early surrealism worth exploring.

-- Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian

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"Les Six" is a name given to a group of six French composers who worked in Montparnasse. The name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's The Five, originates in critic Henri Collet's 1920 article "Les cinq Russes, les six Français et M. Satie". Their music is often seen as a reaction against both the musical style of Richard Wagner and the impressionist music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. The members were Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Six

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Erik Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the late 19th- and early 20th-century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, Surrealism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd. In addition to his body of music, Satie was "a thinker with a gift of eloquence" who left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Satie formed the group Nouveaux jeunes, forerunners of Les Six.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Satie

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Pascal Rogé (born 6 April 1951 in Paris) is a French pianist. At the age of 11, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire and won first prize for both piano and chamber music by the age of 15. Rogé's particular strengths lie in his sensitive and personal interpretations of 20th century French composers; he has made recordings of complete cycles of Ravel, Poulenc and Satie, among others. His repertoire also includes d'Indy, Saint-Saëns, as well as Haydn, Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven. Recently, Pascal Rogé has enjoyed playing in recitals and recording music for four-hands/two-pianos with his wife Ami Rogé.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/pascal-rog%C3%A9-mn0000684193/biography
http://www.pascalroge.net/

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