Download Thierry Escaich

Thierry Escaich
Composer, Organ
Reviews
Escaich Psalmos (world premiere) / Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,
cond. Louis Langrée
"It was a fascinating piece, well-constructed and well-played."
"It was sophisticated writing, with inventive working out of snippets of chorale tunes,
brilliant ostinato (repeating) passages and long themes for the trombones and
basses… The orchestra played the ambitious – and somewhat lengthy – work
superbly."
Cincinnati Enquirer, May 2016
Escaich Baroque Song / Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, cond. Christian
Zacharias
"Baroque Song is cleverly written. The whirling arabesques in the woodwinds that
begin the first of the work’s three brief movements sound like the lead-in to a public
radio news hour, and yet the piece goes beyond parody. It creates its own sound
world."
Star Tribune, April 2016
"...a hum of pleasant chatter between the instruments gradually became anxious and
menacing, sparseness giving way to a dark tableau on the slow movement... cellist
Julie Albers transformed a solo from calm to crazed, propelling the ensemble into a
furious finale full of timpani blasts."
Pioneer Press, April 2016
Solo Recital / Rubenstein Family Organ Recital Series / Kennedy
Center
It was Escaich the composer who shone brightest... able to rarefy the feral fecundity
heard in the improvisations, trimming the excess fat and boiling it down to its most vital
flavors. No. 3, based on the Passiontide chorale “Herzliebster Jesu,” was especially
intense, an anxious, guilt-ridden gnawing of the fingernails...
Washington Post, May 2016
Escaich Double Concerto for Violin and Oboe / New York Philharmonic,
cond. Alan Gilbert, soloists François Leleux & Lisa Batiashvili
“Escaich uses snippets of the Bach as motifs in his new piece. The result is not a
pastiche but a lavishly orchestrated score that weaves threads from Bach into a
striking, moody, playful three-movement concerto of roughly the same length, about
15 minutes… Luminous cluster-like chords unfold in steady rhythmic patterns during
the slow movement, though the soloists and groups of orchestra instruments keep
injecting squirrelly, creepy things into the tranquillity. The last movement begins with a
whiplash sound and becomes a stew of crackling Bachian vitality.”
New York Times, April 2015
Claude / Opéra de Lyon (DVD: Belair Classiques)
“Escaich’s colourful and compelling score – by turns brutal and scintillating – makes
this opera something of an event. Premiered at the Opéra National de Lyon in March
2013, Claude is deeply serious, angry, passionate and demanding, dramatically (if not
musically) in the tradition of Berg’s Wozzeck and Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten.
This is Escaich’s first opera and it shouldn’t be his last. It is the rare work of lyric
theatre today that makes a truly moral claim on our attention, an ambition too often
neglected in the interest of prettiness, sentiment and entertainment.”
Gramophone, July 2015
“As the whole plot unfolds in prison, with some welcome breaks into the imaginary, in
one hour and twenty minutes Claude develops an incredible psychological tension
alternating, at the composers’s whim, with a dark and mysterious lyricism… a major
work of our times, an absolute must-watch.”
Classica, July 2015
Thierry Escaich Composer Portrait concert / BBC National Orchestra of
Wales, cond. Franck Ollu
“Such is [his music’s] energy and buoyancy that the listener is carried irresistibly in the
flow. To counterbalance this apparently unstoppable force, Escaich concerns himself
with structure and, in characteristically French fashion, also explores the colour and
timbres of sound, with sometimes cataclysmic peaks.”
Guardian, January 2015
Escaich Concerto for Orchestra (world premiere) / Orchestre de Paris,
cond. Paavo Järvi / Philharmonie de Paris opening concert
“Mr. Jarvi conducted the premiere of a formidable 30-minute work: Thierry Escaich’s
Concerto for Orchestra. The piece begins with primordial low rumblings that provoke
the percussion to break into skittish fits. This episodic, vividly scored, gritty piece goes
through lurching digressions, by turns combative, reflective and exploratory.”
New York Times, January 2015
“The President of the French Republic took his seat again for the world premiere of
Thierry Escaich’s exhilarating Concerto for Orchestra in four movements… the work is
admirably written, and pleasingly hedonistic.”
Le Monde, January 2015
“We attended the world premiere of a magnificent Concerto for Orchestra by Thierry
Escaich. Dynamic, turbulent, dazzling: a wounded work, bruised by blows and
disturbing lacerations”.
Liberation, January 2015
NDR Sinfonieorchester, cond. Alan Gilbert with Lisa Batiashvili &
Francois Leleux / Escaich Double Concerto (world premiere)
“In places, this artfully constructed piece effused an energy seemingly fed in equal
measure by Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ and Arvo Pärt’s sacrosanct simplicity:
rhythmically extremely demanding and detailed, yet also breathing deeply and with
great clarity of spirit.”
Hamburger Abendblatt, November 2014
“Listeners to this piece required an excellent knowledge of Bach’s original to be able
to immediately identify the allusions and quotations used. This work commissioned by
NDR and the New York Philharmonic, which was premiered in Hamburg the previous
day, straightaway brought the audience into the present. The soloists competed in
dialogues, displaying both melodious agreement and dispute.”
Lübecker Nachrichten, November 2014
Liège Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Pascal Rophé with Olivier Latry /
Escaich Organ Concerto No.1 (Accord)
“His concerto exploits the full sonic and colour ranges of the orchestra and organ in
this thrilling three-movement work, the second rising to an awe-inspiring climax only
topped by the shattering coda of the finale.”
Gramophone, September 2014
Ellipsos Quartet / Escaich Le bal & Tango virtuoso
“[Escaich]’s Le bal exhibits an enormous, orchestral expressive range for a small
ensemble. The Ellipsos create a tonal world here that is very French in its tartness. In
the work’s dance elements, they reveal a penchant for irony. At the start of Tango
virtuoso, the sensuousness of the tango is established immediately, with the quartet
occasionally sounding like an accordion. They suggest the fragility and brittleness
inherent in a certain type of romance.”
Fanfare Magazine, July 2014
Improvisations recital
“… improvisations overflowing with imagination and pages of Bach mastery, inspiring
jubilation.”
Le Monde de la Musique
“His performance was so thrilling that the audience leaped up to applaud at the end.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Orchestre de Paris, cond. Paavo Järvi / Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony
No.3 / BBC Proms
“Saint-Saëns’s Organ Symphony (No.3) is becoming quite a Proms favourite — this
was its third performance in the past six years — and with the mighty Albert Hall
instrument in full-throated voice for the finale, it’s not hard to see why. It wasn’t until
the last stages, however, that Paavo Järvi let his Orchestre de Paris off the leash,
allowing soloist Thierry Escaich to pull out the stops, leading to a roof-raising ending.”
Evening Standard, September 2013
“With Thierry Escaich at the organ, the pomp and circumstance of the finale brought
the house down.”
Guardian, September 2013
Opéra de Lyon, cond. Jérémie Rhorer / Escaich Claude (world
premiere)
“Thierry Escaich's taut first opera, Claude, premiered to rapturous applause. Former
justice minister Robert Badinter's libretto is a furious portrait of brutality and
homophobia in the French penal system…. Constructed almost as a Passion, with
extensive use of chorus and allusions to the soundworlds of Messiaen, Berg and
Shostakovich, Claude is a bold, intelligent, concise work that deserves an international
audience.”
Independent, March 2013
“Claude is an opera that deserves to travel. Accessible without being simplistic,
contemporary while not aggressive, it’s the kind of coherent music-drama that might
just get a new generation into the opera house.”
The Arts Desk, March 2013
“Claude is, without doubt, a masterpiece which deserves to stay for a long time in the
repertoire of contemporary opera.”
Les Trois Coups, April 2013
Solo organ recital / BBC Proms
“An appealing virtuoso, with a staggering technique…Escaich also ranks among the
great French improvisers… The themes [for the improvisations], given to him at the
start of the recital, were the march from the Second Piano Concerto and the chorale
from St Francis of Paola Walking on the Water, from which he wove a three-section
fantasia that, chameleon-like, emulated both Liszt's harmonic palette and his bravura
style, with cascades of sound. Utterly remarkable.”
Guardian, September 2011
Les nuits hallucinées / Orchestre National de Lyon, cond. Jun Märkl
(Accord/Universal)
“La Barque solaire with organ is an exhilarating race for organ and orchestra, in which
the organ, played by the composer himself, melts into the symphonic material to pulse
and beat with the flow of the music…the entire symphonic poem with organ weaves its
own path, brought inevitably by its necessary interior: a strength which the writing
conveys as a strong and impressive wildness, until its final explosion which resounds
like a triumphal note.”
Classique News, May 2011
“This is surely this year’s most significant contemporary music release…In listening to
these three new works, each as successful as the other, one can recognise the
essential qualities of Escaich’s music; the originality of his harmonies, the richness of
his orchestration and an unerring understanding of shape.”
L’Express, May 2011
“As an organist, Escaich is one of the world’s finest improvisers, crafting immense and
compelling works ‘on the spot’ with no preparation…In nearly every improvisation,
Escaich’s masterful technique as an organist is displayed, most are thus highly
virtuosic in their demands, though he is not afraid to create moments of repose,
simplicity, and mystical beauty. Strongly recommended.”
Fanfare, May 2009
Intermusica represents Thierry Escaich worldwide
Catherine Gibbs, Associate Director
+44 20 7608 9946, [email protected]
Maebh Lehane, Administrator, Artist Management
+44 20 7608 9924, [email protected]
http://intermusica.co.uk/artist/Thierry-Escaich
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