Fairy Tales

The CD Fairy Tales Without Words offers a compilation of works for viola by Robert Schumann, alternating with those written by Hans Ulrich Lehmann and György Kurtág in the spirit of the Romantic composer. This clash of styles is fully convincing, thanks to three outstanding artists in perfect harmony with the sound engineer, who demonstrates high fidelity in the noblest sense of the word!

Thanks to the three composers, it's the viola that holds the red thread! In the MärchenbilderJürg Dähler's rich, "butter-cut" sound and his ability to tell his "Fairy Tales" with the very human voice of his instrument. If the tempo of the violist and Gilles Vonsattel, his excellent pianist, strikes us as unusually slow in the nicht schnell of the first movement, the listener is charmed by the wonderfully phrased melody that seems to emanate from the mouth of a beautiful storyteller! But the duet wakes the listener up abruptly in lebhaft or even terrify it at speed in rasch ! In his conversation with sound engineer Andreas Werner, Dähler explains that Schumann originally intended to call the work Violageschichten !

For the trio Märchenerzählungenthe talented clarinettist François Benda joins our two musicians. In this composition, written just three years before his death, Schumann reveals, throughout the third movement.., mit zartem AusdruckThese moving moments are revealed peacefully, but with an inner conviction that stands in stark contrast to the panache of a man. These moving moments are revealed peacefully, but with an inner conviction that contrasts sharply with the panache of sehr markiert. As in the four works on this CD, Gilles Vonsattel plays with remarkable clarity, in perfect harmony with his colleagues.

Commissioned by Jürg Dähler following a close collaboration with a composer sad to be out of fashion, Without Words (2011) by Hans Ulrich Lehmann was premiered four months after his death in 2013. His twenty-six-minute music is complex, sometimes intense, sometimes ultra-intimate, sometimes cruelly difficult; it explores the limits of avant-garde but non-electronic effects, and rewards effort only insistently. The idea of juxtaposing this world-first recording and concluding the CD with theTribute to R. Sch. by György Kurtág, music that is, on the contrary, concise and concentrated, is just brilliant. Unquestionably a success!

Fairy Tales Without Words: Werke von Robert Schumann, Hans Ulrich Lehmann und György Kurtág. Jürg Dähler, Violin, Viola; François Benda, Klarinette; Gilles Vonsattel, Klavier. Genuin GEN 17485

We enjoyed François Benda in Schumann and Kurtag. Back in 2001, this musician of all styles recorded a jazz program with his father, Sebastian, a renowned concert pianist who sadly passed away the following year. Thanks to the initiative of his son and the company Genuin that this CD was released in 2017.

What's particularly captivating is the extraordinary symbiosis between father and son, who together create music like a single performer in the midst of improvisation! This is all the more astonishing given that the piano is variably distant from the clarinet, which is ultra-present. What an exchange! The two dare to tease each other endlessly in Gershwin and Bernstein. Their pleasure in freedom is still ours in the Sonatina and the Hot Sonata by Schulhoff!

These two CDs, Kind of Jazz and Fairy Tales Without Wordslike many of the label's other recordings Genuinare subtitled Artist Consort - an alternative approach to today's marketing, i.e. the maintenance of a collective of artists, sound engineers and musicians, who take responsibility for their own repertoire and all decisions, far from the "fast food" of the record industry, which all too often predominates.

Kind of Jazz. Werke von George Gershwin, Joseph Horovitz, Erwin Schulhoff, Leonard Bernstein, Daniel Schnyder. François Benda, Klarinette; Sebastian Benda, Klavier. Genuin GEN 17465