PIERRE BARTHOLOMÉE (b.1937): String Quartet (Quatuor Danel), 13 Bagatelles (Philippe Terseler [piano]), Fragments des belles heures for Soprano and Ensemble (Dominique Mols [soprano], Ensemble "Les belles Heures"), Le Rêve de Diotime for Soprano and Ensemble (Valentina Valente [soprano], Ensemble Musiques Nouvelles; Pierre Bartholomée).

Catalogue Number: 04J115

Label: Cyprès

Reference: CYP 4625

Format: CD

Price: $17.98

Description: After a full career as conductor, pianist and teacher, alongside his work as a composer, Bartholomée has in recent years been able to devote himself more fully to composition, and one of the results is his first essay in the time-honoured string quartet medium. The work avoids entirely performing acrobatics and the departure from the purity of the traditional ensemble through the use of extended playing techniques, while making abundant use of the vocabulary of the 20th century. Using 12-note material freely, the work nonetheless suggests a tonal basis, though of a very extended kind. This is especially true of the third movement (of five), a strongly rhythmic scherzo. Discursive and tautly argued, in its more aggressive moments the outer movements especially occupy the most nearly atonal territory, but the overriding impression is of a tense lyricism of great harmonic freedom. The extended vocal cycle Fragments sets a variety of mainly 13th and 14th century texts accompanied by various instrumental combinations drawn from an ensemble of five players in a style that evokes, without imitation, early and folk-derived music. The monodrama Le Rêve de Diotime is scored for a larger ensemble, and is closer in vocabulary to the quartet - freely atonal but lyrically expressive, in an ambiguous, dreamlike atmosphere. The thirteen short piano pieces are effectively studies, each exploring a different technical or expressive device in active and incisive, clear, though sometimes complex, textures. Full scores of three of the works (excluding Le rêve) are included in PDF format on CD2; texts but no translations printed in the booklet. 2 CDs for the price of 1.

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