Main Theme From “Schindler’s List”
From the album ‘Cinema’, Renaud Capuçon, out 12 October 2018. ‘Film music can be sublime and has attracted some truly great composers;’ says Renaud Capuçon of his latest release, Cinéma. ‘This album is something of a dream come true.’ The French star violinist’s homage to the silver screen features unforgettable themes — in stunning new arrangements – from Ennio Morricone (Cinema Paradiso, Mission), Nino Rota, John Williams (Schindler’s List), James Horner (Legends of the Fall), to more recent blockbusters (Twilight) and iconic French films (Amélie). Capuçon powerfully and sensitively evokes the magic of the cinema with the aid of the Brussels Philharmonic and conductor Stéphane Denève.
Available on CD, vinyl and digitally.
Discography
‘Film music can be sublime and has attracted some truly great composers;’ says Renaud Capuçon of his latest release, Cinema. ‘This album is something of a dream come true.’ The French star violinist’s homage to the silver screen features unforgettable themes – in stunning new arrangements – from Ennio Morricone (Cinema Paradiso, Mission), Nino Rota, John Williams (Schindler’s List), James Horner (Legends of the Fall), to more recent blockbusters (Twilight) and iconic French films (Amélie). Capuçon powerfully and sensitively evokes the magic of the cinema with the aid of the Brussels Philharmonic and conductor Stéphane Denève.
Bartók’s violin concertos Nr. 1 & 2
Renaud Capuçon expands his wide-ranging concerto discography with Bartók’s two violin concertos. Composed almost three decades apart, they are highly contrasted, inhabiting very different emotional and musical worlds. Partnering Capuçon is the London Symphony Orchestra under its Principal Guest Conductor, François-Xavier Roth.
Available on CD, vinyl and digitally.
Debussy: Sonates & Trio
The 3rd of November 2017 marks the release of Renaud Capuçon’s new Album with Warner Classics including Sonatas & Trios of Claude Debussy.
Marking the centenary of Debussy’s death on 25th March 1918, this album of chamber music is centred on the three sonatas the composer wrote during World War I, patriotically asserting himself as ‘Claude Debussy, musicien français.’ Six leading French musicians of today are the performers: pianist Bertrand Chamayou, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, violinist Renaud Capuçon, cellist Edgar Moreau, viola player Gerard Caussé and harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet.
Rihm: Gedicht des Malers, Dusapin: Aufgang, Mantovani: Jeux d’Eau
Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole, Bruch: Violin Concerto
The 22nd of January 2016 marks the release of Renaud Capuçon’s Album with Warner Classics including the best-known works by Edouard Lalo, Pablo de Sarasate and Max Bruch.
Firmly established as one of the world’s leading violinists, Renaud Capuçon will celebrate his 40th birthday the month of release (27 January – the same day as Lalo’s!), marking an important personal occasion in a suitably festive fashion. The new album collects Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole in D minor Op. 21, Bruch’s Concerto No. 1 in G minor Op.26 and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen Op. 20. Renaud Capuçon collaborated in this recording with Maestro Paavo Järvi and the Orchestre de Paris at the orchestra’s new home, the French capital’s Philharmonie, which opened in early 2015 and was immediately hailed for its superb acoustics. The Bruch concerto became the first piece to be recorded there, in May 2015.
Renaud Capuçon & Khatia Buniatishvili: Franck, Grieg, Dvorak Violin Sonatas
It was living legend Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon’s frequent duo partner and Khatia Buniatishvili’s mentor, who played musical matchmaker and brought these two brilliant performers together. Their concerts at Lugano Festival in 2012 were such a resounding success that the friendship stuck. Capuçon has been praised for his “intensely lyrical” tone and “gloriously rich sound” (BBC Music Magazine). His poised, expressive playing provides the ideal counterbalance to the impassioned pianism of 27-year-old Khatia Buniatishvili, the “fiery young star” (The Independent) hailed by Argerich as “a young pianist of extraordinary talent. I was impressed by her exceptional pianistic gift, natural musicality, imagination and her brilliant virtuosity.” Together, the pair has devised a delectable program of Romantic sonatas for violin and piano – all, extraordinarily, composed within a year in 1886-87. César Franck’s Sonata in A major is one of the finest in the genre, beloved for its soaring melodies and sensuous, light-filled final movement. “Khatia and I met over Franck’s sonata,” Capuçon recalls. “This is the sonata that sealed our musical partnership, the sheer joy of playing together.”
Distant Lights – Vasks; Bach: Violin Concertos BWV 1041 & 1042
Renaud Capuçon’s first recording as both soloist and conductor is also his first recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He has chosen to juxtapose Bach’s violin concertos in A minor and E major with a haunting concerto written more than 350 years later: Tala gaisma (Distant Light) by contemporary Latvian composer Peteris Vasks.
This programme is as intriguing as it is unexpected. Capuçon – who points out that the Bach A minor was the first concerto he ever played – had considered the more conventional complement of Bach’s Double Violin Concerto; but he settled on Distant Light, a work which, as he says, “I fell in love with as soon as I discovered it”. He decided to “put together two different worlds, Bach’s and Vask’s … Their music does, however share a purity … it rises up from a source. When you play it, you don’t get tired … It is healing music, feeding you and giving you energy.”
It is perhaps no coincidence that Peteris Vasks has himself said: “My intention is to provide food for the soul and this is what I preach in my works … Most people today no longer possess beliefs, love and ideals. The spiritual dimension has been lost.” Vasks was born in 1946, a year before his fellow Latvian, Gidon Kremer, the dedicatee of Distant Light, which was first heard in 1997 at the Salzburg Festival, performed by Kremer and his then newly-founded ensemble Kremerata Baltica, comprising young players from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.
In his music, Vasks often draws on the phenomena of nature – here, twinkling stars in the night sky – and embeds elements of Latvian folk music in a modern idiom. The concerto was stimulated both by the composer’s own memories and Kremer’s German-language autobiography Kindheitsspiltter (Splinters of Childhood). Constructed as a single movement in eleven sections and characterised by contrasting moods, it is fundamentally tonal and often contemplative, inhabiting an aesthetic and spiritual world akin to that of composers such as Arvo Pärt, John Tavener and Henryk Górecki.
Renaud Capuçon describes the Chamber Orchestra of Europe as “an amazing orchestra, with extraordinary concentration and focus. Within a few seconds of starting to play, we were all sharing the same spirit.” He was also delighted to have, as he said, “the luxury of a leading harpsichordist”, the French player Céline Frisch, to provide the continuo.
“Directing the orchestra from the violin, I have a different and wider set of responsibilities. Rather than getting caught up in the detail of the solo part, it’s up to me to drive the whole session. By taking on the extra role, I gain a better view of the whole musical picture. But with this orchestra, the experience is like playing chamber music, with players around the ensemble contributing their opinions as the recording session progresses. It’s all very organic.”
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
‘Other participants: Renaud Capuçon, Celine Frisch, Peteris Vasks, Chamber Orchestra of Europe
La muse et le poète – Concertos
For some years the two Capuçon brothers had not recorded together concerto repertoire , their careers down smoothly but separately. This is now done with this new record under the sign of Saint- Saëns . Renaud sang the famous Concerto No. 3, a powerful lyricism, and Gautier climbed the mountain no less famous Cello Concerto No. 1, immortalized by Rostropovich . The two brothers then meet in The Muse and the Poet , short and rarely performed work , supported by the fervor of the orchestra, the dialogue is sometimes fiery , sometimes contemplative, between the poet ( cello ) in search of inspiration, and his muse ( violin ) . The brilliant young French chef Lionel Bringuier ( Associate Chief of the orchestra of Los Angeles, and in 2014 the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich) is new at Erato in this record that will be given in concert in Paris , Grenoble and Toulouse.
Le Violon Roi
Virgin Classics publishes 25 February, the day of Victories de la Musique Classique, a 3 CD digipack box, prefaced by Philippe Labro, which contains the most beautiful pages of violin on CD 1 of the most famous movement of concertos (Mendelssohn, Brahms , Beethoven, Mozart …) CD 2 tubes of chamber music (Schubert Barry Lyndon, Trout, Beethoven …) on CD 3 small pieces with piano (the Meditation from Thais, Carnival of the Animals …).
