“Music is never stationary; successive forms and styles are only like so many resting-places – like tents pitched and taken down again on the road to the Ideal.” (Franz Liszt)

A firmly established virtuoso of the great romantic repertoire, Canadian pianist André Laplante presents the first album of a three-fold project dedicated to Liszt’s complete Années de pélerinage (Years of Pilgrimage). “Switzerland”, the first book, is seemingly anchored in the world of earthly sensations, yet it makes a series of connections between two people who loved each other deeply (Liszt and Marie d’Agoult), but also between landscapes and beloved poets, such as Schiller, Byron or Senancour, quoted as epigraphs of each tableau.
While this musical diary appears to be inspired by Helvetian landscapes, it transcends simple description. For the performer, being able to convey these multiple layers requires not only exceptional technique but also a wide-ranging creativity and insight, which André Laplante transmits with brio.

We saw a lot of you at the Analekta booth at the Salon son et image this weekend and we were delighted to meet you all and talk about our catalogue, the new online boutique and the differences between mp3 and FLAC formats. A special $4.99 rebate was offered to all participants, so that they could appreciate by themselves the impressive quality of the FLAC files when visiting the www.analekta.com boutique for the first time.

Now is the time to register and really get the maximum out of our online boutique. To do so, you just have to follow that link.

You’re still unsure about the file format you want to download? You want to try it but still have some questions? At any time while visiting www.analekta.com, don’t hesitate to click on the pink tab at the right of your screen. That will lead you in a flash to our very complete FAQ section.

When launched, the album had been hailed on the national or international scenes, by audience and critics alike, who were eager to bring to light the remarkable qualities of the performance given by the monks of Saint-Benoît Abbey. More than 60 000 copies of the recording were sold at that time. Analekta is particularly happy to release a new edition of Cantus Mariales: Medieval Sacred Chants to the Virgin Mary, almost 15 years after his first release. Gregorian chant at its very best!

To listen to the album…

“I have the kind of temperament that tries to make rules for the pleasure of breaking them later.” French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, who turns 85 today, is celebrating his birthday with a series of concerts in the world’s musical capital, Vienna. Not only will he be conducting the famous Vienna Philharmonic in the Austrian capital’s legendary auditorium of the Musikverein concert hall, but there will also be a special Boulez Festival at the city’s University of Music and the Performing Arts.

Boulez will conduct a set of six concerts – including on his birthday tonight – of Karol Szymanowski‘s Third Symphony, Claude Debussy’s Jeux plus his own work-in-progress, Notations.

Once all the 85th birthday celebrations are over, Boulez plans to take a sabbatical from conducting next year and concentrate on composition, he said. “It’s wonderful people are so attentive. It’s very touching. But when 85 is gone, then I have to concentrate on my own work,” such as the completion of his unfinished Notations, he said.

To better understand the mythical composer of the Marteau sans Maître, Pli selon Pli or, more recently, Messagesquisse, you can read a transcript of some CBC radio interviews here…

To get a closer look at the Marteau, one of the masterworks of serialism, you can follow this link instead.

What happened in the musical world on March 23, let’s say in 1891? Maybe you need a little hint.  We’re talking about the first jazz concert, presented at the famous Carnegie Hall in new York. The first recording, by the Original Dixie Jass Band, would be launched a few years later, in 1917.