Naxos: César Franck — Piano Quintet / Ernest Chausson — String Quartet (Audio CD)

Product Details

• Product Type: Audio CD
• Brand / Label: Naxos
• Artist: César Franck & Ernest Chausson (Compositions) / Quatuor Ludwig (Jean-Philippe Audoli, Violin I; Elenid Owen, Violin II; Padrig Fauré, Viola; Anne Copéry, Cello) / Michaël Levinas (Piano)
• Release Year: 1997
• Genre: Classical / Chamber Music
• Style: Romantic Era / Late Nineteenth-Century French Chamber Music

Product Features

• Format: CD, Album, Stereo
• Discs: 1
• Condition: Brand New / Factory Sealed (MINT)
• Country of Manufacture: Made in E.C.
• Catalog Number: 8.553645
• UPC / Barcode: 730099464529

Overview

This elegant release from Naxos couples two profound masterpieces of French late-Romantic chamber literature. Recorded at the Alençon Auditorium in Alençon, France, from April 26th to 29th, 1996, the album brings together the acclaimed Quatuor Ludwig and master pianist Michaël Levinas. The program features César Franck’s intense, emotionally sweeping Piano Quintet in F minor alongside Ernest Chausson’s bittersweet and uncompleted String Quartet in C minor, Op. 35—a hauntingly poetic final testament gracefully completed by his close friend Vincent d'Indy. Produced with the distinguished financial backing of Laboratoires Pierre Fabre, this album flawlessly showcases the fluid thematic color and dramatic structural expression that defined the late-nineteenth-century French musical renaissance.

Interesting Facts

• Features front cover art containing a reproduction of the masterly painting Young Woman from Amalfi by the celebrated French portraitist and printmaker Ernest Joseph Angelon Aman-Jean, curated directly from the Collection Lucile Audouy.
• Composer Ernest Chausson tragically died in a bicycle accident in 1899 before completing his String Quartet, leaving his close friend and fellow master composer Vincent d'Indy to reconstruct the final structural sections from the remaining sketches.

Track Listing

1–3. César Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor (Quatuor Ludwig with Michaël Levinas, piano) — 36:10

• 1. Molto moderato (15:25)
• 2. Lento (11:37)
• 3. Allegro non troppo (9:08) 4–6. Ernest Chausson: String Quartet in C minor, Op. 35 [Completed by Vincent d'Indy] — 31:08
• 4. Grave (12:03)
• 5. Très calme (10:22)
• 6. Gaiement et pas trop vite (8:43)

Publishers

• ℗ 1997 HNH International Ltd. / © 1997 HNH International Ltd. Distributed by MVD Music and Video Distribution GmbH. Recorded with the support of Laboratoires Pierre Fabre.

Have you experienced the sweeping emotional dialogue of the Quatuor Ludwig on this release? Share your listening perspective below to help fellow classical chamber enthusiasts discover this definitive late-Romantic French pairing!

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