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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 Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)