Audrey Vigoureux - Bach & Beethoven: Quasi una fantasia (2015) [Official Digital Download]

The artistry of Audrey Vigoureux joins two facets of pianistic playing in a unique synthesis: the fire of a passionate commitment and the crystalline clarity of a strong thought. By means of a very deep textual reading, full of intelligence and humility, she finds the foundations of a prodigiously lively spontaneity. Where others oscillate between their consciousness and their madness, the one making concessions to the other, Audrey Vigoureux achieves a continuous balance between the two. Each note she plays is underlined by a double commandment: to master and to vibrate. Audrey Vigoureux chose to record Bach and Beethoven, two composers inhabited by the fire of the fantasy, and by the crystal of the fugue. Beethoven subtitled two sonatas “Quasi una Fantasia”. The Opus 27 no. 1 is thus not a Fantasy, but a Sonata “like a Fantasy”. The composer now feels constrained within the canons of the Sonata… The Op.27 no.1 announces an unprecedented fusion in the history of music. The fusion truly operates in the Sonata op.110, stretched between extreme freedom of inspiration and formal ambition. Deeply Beethovenian, the pianist gives to Bach a lyrical breath, that he is too often missing, while taking advantage of the extraordinary clarity of her sound range in order to highlight the polyphonies. If this music maintained a barrier between Fantasy and Fugue, Audrey Vigoureux understood that the interpreter must question it and play fantasies with rigor and fugues with fantasy…

Tracklist:
01. Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27 No. 1 "Quasi una fantasia": I. Andante-Allegro-Andante
02. Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27 No. 1 "Quasi una fantasia": II. Allegro molto e vivace
03. Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27 No. 1 "Quasi una fantasia": III. Adagio con espressione
04. Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27 No. 1 "Quasi una fantasia": IV. Allegro vivace
05. Fantasy & Fugue in A Minor, BWV 904: I. Fantasy
06. Fantasy & Fugue in A Minor, BWV 904: II. Fugue
07. Fantasy & Fugue in C Minor, BWV 906: I. Fantasy
08. Fantasy & Fugue in C Minor, BWV 906: II. Fugue
09. Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110: I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo
10. Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110: II. Allegro molto
11. Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110: III. Adagio, ma non troppo-Fuga (Allegro, ma non troppo)

Composers:
Bach, Johann Sebastian (1685-1750)
Beethoven, Ludwig van (1770-1827)

Personnel:
Audrey Vigoureux, piano