William Youn, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin & Valentin Uryupin - Boulanger, Fauré, Hahn (2024)

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William Youn, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin & Valentin Uryupin - Boulanger, Fauré, Hahn (2024)

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William Youn's first orchestral album for Sony Classical in cooperation with Deutschlandradio Berlin is dedicated entirely to the exuberant flair of fin-de-siècle Paris with rare repertoire by Reynaldo Hahn, Nadia Boulanger and Gabriel Fauré - a musical excursion into the salons of the Belle Époque full of dazzling rediscoveries.

For William Youn, these works for piano and orchestra are musical dialogs and narratives - conversations between soloist and orchestra in which melodies wander, inner voices are made audible and the partners merge musically. With clearly articulated brilliance, sensitive interpretation and highly virtuosic dexterity, William Youn lends this recording its very own character and recommends himself as a congenial orchestral soloist. Together with the Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin and conductor Valentin Uryupin, William Youn performs Reynaldo Hahn's rarely heard piano concerto on this double album to mark the 150th anniversary of his birth. Although it was written in 1930, it is still musically dedicated to the beauty of 19th century sound. Hahn, who was a favorite of the Paris salons as a singer and pianist and had a relationship with Marcel Proust, is remembered by posterity in particular for his songs. Two of them, "À Chloris" and "L'heure exquise", were arranged for solo piano by William Youn himself and added to this recording. The pianist says of Hahn's music: "For me, Reynaldo Hahn's music breathes the spirit of the Belle Époque with its melancholy, lightness and elegance. It is like a late summer breeze that refreshes and at the same time reminds us of the end of a beautiful time.' The composer grand signeur Gabriel Fauré, whose 100th anniversary of his death will be in 2024, acts as the linchpin in this compilation. As Reynaldo Hahn's teacher and Nadia Boulanger's patron, he left his mark on French music history not only with his compositions, but also with his influence on his young successors. In addition to his rarely heard Ballade op. 19, which Franz Liszt described as unplayable, and the Fantaisie op. 111 for piano and orchestra, William Youn has also recorded his arrangement of Fauré's famous song "Après un rêve".

Nadia Boulanger's "Fantaisie variée" from 1912 is a first recording of a very special kind: The work, which Boulanger wrote for her musical partner Raoul Pugno and which had not been published until a few years ago, has only recently been re-released, supplemented by previously missing pages. William Youn, the RSB and conductor Valentin Uryupin are thus taking the work in its entirety into a new era and bringing the colorful and contrasting composition, which has echoes of the sound world of César Franck, Richard Wagner and Igor Stravinsky, closer to a modern audience.