Biography

French cellist Victor Julien-Laferrière has racked up an impressive roster of prizes in his still-young career, including first prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2017 and first prize at the Prague Spring International Compe-tition in 2012. From 2005 to 2011, Julien-Laferrière took part in the Seiji Ozawa International Music Academy Switzerland. His first sonata recording (Debussy, Franck, Brahms) was released in 2016 on the Mirare label and won high praise from the critical press, including a Diapason d’Or, a CHOC from Classica, a ffff from Télérama and Editor’s Choice from France Musique. Julien-Laferrière is a member of the Trio Les Esprits, with violinist Mi-Sa Yang and pianist Adam Laloum. The Trio recently signed an exclusive contract with Sony Classical.

Pianist Jonas Vitaud too has won numerous international prizes, including the ARD in Munich and the Beethoven Prize in Vienna. BBC Music magazine wrote that he ‘has the technique to span the gamut of expressions, from wrathful heroism to tension-filled chiaroscuro’. LMMC debut.

https://www.victorjulien-laferriere.com/

Notes

A duo recital for a string instrument and piano often carries with it the implication that the piano serves mostly in the role of accompanist. Nothing could be further from the truth with the music on today’s program. In all four works, the cellist and pianist are equal partners. In the Rachmaninov sonata the piano even threatens to overwhelm the cello at times, not sur-prisingly as the composer was also a virtuoso pianist.

The program opens with a lightweight, pleasant work of considerable charm. It makes no attempt to cut new stylistic or formal paths, but what is note-worthy is the degree to which Beethoven exploits the expressive range of the cello, still in its early stages of development as a solo instrument. The variations are based on the duet Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen (All men, who can feel love) from Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute.

Next comes music by Poulenc, whom his close friend, the baritone Pierre Bernac, described as ‘a mixture of gaiety and melancholy, profundity and futility, triviality and nobility’, all qualities that pretty much sum up his Cello Sonata as well.

Pohádka (A Fairy Tale) was the first of Janáček’s Russian-derived works. One can easily associate the voice of the cello with a prince and that of the piano with the beautiful princess he eventually marries. Each of the three short movements is in free form, episodic in the manner of a rhapsody or narrative account.

At 35 minutes, Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata is one of the most expansive and broadly conceived sonatas ever written for the instrument, almost symphonic in its scope and richly textured writing.

Robert Markow