The Pièces de clavecin en concerts are the only examples of Rameau’s chamber music that were written in the composer’s full maturity. Unlike the Trio Sonatas of Corelli where the harpsichord essentially provides the basso continuo, these scores place the instrument in a virtuosic central role accompanied by violin and viola da gamba. They are arranged in five sets of between three and six pieces, each with enigmatic titles drawn from place names, human characteristics or personal names. The programme is a showcase for Christophe Rousset, harpsichord virtuoso and specialist in the music of Rameau.
Reduction available when booked with this afternoon's recital by Kristian Bezuidenhout.
The spirit of revolution sweeps through the 2015 Festival in a programme which focuses on French music and musicians. Our early music concerts are clustered around 18 June: the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Border towns such as Newtown, Montgomery, Welshpool, Llanfyllin and Oswestry housed significant colonies of Napoleonic prisoners of war on parole during the early nineteenth century and many of these distinguished officers later fought and died at Waterloo. Artists include Fantasticus (Powis Castle Ballroom, 17 June), London Handel Players with French Baroque dance specialists Mary Collins and Steven Player (Montgomery Town Hall, 18 June), Revolutionary Drawing Room with flautist Rachel Brown (Llanfyllin Church, 19 June), harpist Masumi Nagasawa and Ensemble Amarillis (Gregynog, 20 June) and Les Folies françoises (Gregynog, 21 June).
Our first weekend celebrates the revolutionary tastes in music and art of Gwendoline and Margaret Davies. In the spectacular setting of the Gregynog Gallery at National Museum Cardiff, Xavier de Maistre performs French repertoire to complement the Davies Collection of Impressionist art (12 June). Pianist Iwan Llewelyn-Jones and the Escher String Quartet explore the fascinating story of Gwendoline's forgotten Conservatoire which was staffed entirely by French musicians (National Library of Wales, 13 June); and the Society of Strange and Ancient Instruments recreates one of the candlelit concerts which were given by a group of the same name in Paris when the sisters were purchasing their paintings there (Llandinam Village Hall, 14 June).
Our final weekend considers musical revolutionaries of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Alexander Scriabin, performed by Ensemble Variances with the outstanding Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov (Gregynog, 26 June), and Erik Satie, whose music has been recorded to great critical acclaim by Anne Queffélec (Gregynog, 27 June). Stéphanie d’Oustrac and Pascal Jourdan present mélodies by Duparc, Debussy and Reynaldo Hahn (Gregynog, 27 June), and the Festival closes with a concert of Charpentier and Du Mont by the superb Belgian vocal ensemble Vox Luminis, directed by Lionel Meunier (Montgomery Church, 28 June).
Founded in 1933, Gregynog Festival is Wales’ oldest extant classical music festival and brings the world’s finest musicians to the heart of rural Montgomeryshire. Gregynog Festival is a signature event of the Welsh Government and the only Welsh member of REMA, the European Early Music Network.