- artist:Jean Françaix
- featured artist:Dimitri Ashkenazy, Ada Meinich, Bernd Glemser, Yvonne Lang, Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra, Christoph-Mathias Mueller
- release year:2016
- style(s):Contemporary
- country:Austria
- formats:Audio File / Digital, CD (Compact Disc),
- record posted by:paladino media
- label:paladino media
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This release just won the Ö1 Pasticcio-Preis!
Dimitri Ashkenazy about M. Françaix's music:
"I have been a fan of Françaix‘s music since the first time I heard one of his pieces, which was sometime in my youth at the old Kunsthaus in Lucerne," says Dimitri Ashkenazy.
I loved the spirit, the subtle use of harmony, the humour, but also the introspection.
The variations are, indeed, an astonishing compositional tour de force of mood swings, key changes, changes of meter, virtuosity in both instruments, and brilliant treatment of the "Tema", which is essentially a motif based on the pronunciation of Françaix's grandson's name
("O-li-vier").
I have since come to realise that like all good humorists, Françaix must have had a keen understanding of, to quote Douglas Adams,
"life, the universe and everything", and therefore clearly had his moments of soul-searching and unanswered questions.
Indeed, in order to laugh about something, one has to have a certain knowledge of it.
In this, in my opinion, he was a master.