Samson Francois - The Unreleased Swiss Recordings

Samson Francois — The Unreleased Swiss Recordings

Numbered edition on 180-gram vinyl 2LP limited to 2,000 copies!

Phoenix Mastering restoration from original analog tapes

Lacquers cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio

Pressed by Simon Garcia, Marciac, France

New stampers every 500 copies!

Gatefold tip-on jackets printed in Italy

Samson François inevitably ranks alongside Sofronitzky, Horowitz and Cortot. The latter also mentioned it in these terms: "I only manage to make it play by creating images." We find these evocations in multiple and fascinating colors in each of these new recordings captured in Switzerland, in different locations, for a program entirely dedicated to his favorite universe: romantic music.

From the first notes of Schumann's Papillons, recorded in the RTS studios in Geneva in 1961, we understand why the very natural interpretation of Samson François operates the synthesis between the two theories of music, that of Rameau who does not see in she only rhythm and order, and that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for whom it is the purest expression of feeling. Samson manages to draw out the most concentrated essences to give us one of the most captivating readings of this early work inspired by a masked ball.

Mendelssohn's two Wordless Romances which follow, immortalized on the same date, are fashioned from the same material. And we wonder after having been hypnotized by this sonority with infinite sustain, the delicate carving of the articulations of the accompaniment, the ideal legato, this rubato of incredible elegance which is grafted onto an ideal pulsation: Is there a more captivating reading of these miniatures than these?

Samson François floats on his keyboard and on the music, "I would have liked to make a pact with the devil, but he didn't want me" he was quoted in an article in Diapason magazine in 2020. Excessive, unpredictable, seductive , vulnerable...in a word, magnetic, as revealed by this unprecedented discovery which pays homage to the man who, incontestably, is one of the greatest pianist poets of the 20th century.

 

 

 

Disc 1

1. Schumann: Papillons, Op. 2

2. Mendelssohn: Songs without Words in B Minor, Op. 67, No. 5

3. Mendelssohn: Songs without Words in A Major, Op. 62, No. 6

4. Alabyev/Liszt: The Nightingale, S. 250

5. Liszt: Sonetto 123 del Petrarca, S. 161, No. 6

6. Liszt: Valse-Impromptu, S.213

7. Liszt: Transcendental Étude No. 8 "Wilde Jagd", S. 139

8. Liszt: Transcendental Étude No. 7 "Eroica", S. 139

Disc 2

1. Liszt: Piano Concerto in E-flat Major, No. 1, S. 124

2. Chopin: Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2

3. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody in D-flat Major, S. 244, No. 6

4. Chopin: Nocturne in G Minor, Op. 15, No. 3

5. Chopin: Étude in G-flat Major, Op. 10, No. 5

6. Chopin: Étude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12

7. Chopin: Grande valse brillante in E-flat Major, Op. 18

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