GUILLAUME CONNESSON Musique de chambre

Guillaume Connesson, born in 1970, is currently one of the most widely performed French composers worldwide. Commissions are at the origin of most of his works (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre National de France...) including Pour sortir au jour, commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2013) and Les Trois Cités de Lovecraft (co-commission of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre National de Lyon). Moreover, his music is regularly played by numerous orchestras (Brussels Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra et al.)
He won a Victoires de la Musique award in 2015 as well as Sacem’s Grand Prize in 2012.
His discography includes, amongst others, two monographs of chamber music and two symphonic monographs on the Deutsche Grammophon label. The first, Lucifer, obtained a ’ Choc’ from Classica magazine, and the second, Pour sortir au jour, numerous critical distinctions such as the ’Diapason d’Or de l’Année’ as well the Classica ’Choc de l’Année’.
After studies at the Conservatoire National de Région in Boulogne-Billancourt (his birthplace) and the Paris Conservatoire, he obtained premiers prix in choral direction, history of music, analysis, electro-acoustic and orchestration.
He has been professor of orchestration at the Aubervilliers-La Courneuve Conservatory since 1997.
In residence from 2016 to 2018 with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra as well as with the Orchestre National de Lyon, he is also devoting himself to the composition of an opera, Les Bains macabres (on a libretto by Olivier Bleys), commissioned by the Opéra National de Bordeaux.

Novus Quartet / Lise Berthaud / Ophélie Gaillard TCHAIKOVSKY String Quartet No. 1 - Souvenir de Florence

After an audacious label and album debut dedicated to Webern, Beethoven and Yun, the young musicians of the Novus Quartet interpret with passion two essential works from Tchaikovsky's chamber music: the First Quartet and the Sextet 'Souvenir de Florence' aided and abetted by two guests, cellist Ophélie Gaillard and viola player Lise Berthaud.

These two works, milestones in the career of the composer (the first written in 1871; the second in 1887), show Tchaikovsky's inclination for popular melodies. Clarity and technique serving musical expression, the fiery strings of the Novus Quartet spread a warm, homogenous sound that invites melancholy, in the slow movements, and paints the exultation of Tchaikovsky's poetic universe.

Lise Berthaud / Adam Laloum SCHUMANN - SCHUBERT - BRAHMS

In comparison to the violin and cello, the viola has always had a small repertoire, and works for other instruments have been adapted to augment it. Of the three pieces on this 2013 release by violist Lise Berthaud and her accompanist, Adam Laloum, only Robert Schumann's Märchenbilder was conceived from the beginning for viola and piano. Franz Schubert's "Arpeggione" Sonata was originally composed for a six-stringed cello-like instrument, and the music was transposed to the viola's range and arranged to be playable on four strings. The Sonata No. 2 in E flat major by Johannes Brahms was written for clarinet and piano, but he was so taken with the possibilities that he subsequently arranged it for viola and violin. Yet all three works have become staples for violists, and the program is unified by a common Romantic style and means of expression. Berthaud produces a rich and deeply vibrant tone, and her smooth, sustained lines and lyrical style give these pieces a strong feeling of connectedness. At the piano, Laloum provides understated support that underpins Berthaud's playing with warm harmonies and vigorous rhythms, yet never dominates or pushes the music along. The microphone placement puts the viola front and center, and every note is fully audible, even at the softest dynamics. (Blair Sanderson)

Quatuor Voce / Lise Berthaud MOZART - BRAHMS String Quintets

Since the very beginning of our quartet, ten years ago, we have always cultivated collaborations with artists from different horizons and diverse backgrounds. The string quintet seems to us to be the most natural and the most intimate of formations, seamlessly merging with the established ensemble an instrument which already has a brother in the quartet and redistributing the material without signi cantly changing the framework. The viola quintet repertoire has followed us from our rst steps as a string quartet right up to the present day, be it with distinguished teachers (Miguel da Silva, Yuri Bashmet) or with brilliant artists of our generation such as Lise Berthaud, who inspires us with her generous sound and innate musical instinct. 

Whether in Mozart or Brahms, we have constantly admired and enjoyed the ease, the liberty of expression and the sheer joy this fth voice confers on their music. As if the addition of a second viola resolved all the problems which arise with four instruments, Brahms and Mozart offer us masterworks of orchestral dimensions, the meeting of the most intimate and the most universal of worlds. Those four extra strings seem to expand even further the quartet’s already vast spectrum of sound.