Bach & Beethoven: Quasi una fantasia Audrey Vigoureux

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27 No. 1 "Quasi una fantasia":
• 1 I. Andante - Allegro - Andante 04:07
• 2 II. Allegro molto e vivace 01:53
• 3 III. Adagio con espressione 02:54
• 4 IV. Allegro vivace 05:34
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Fantasy & Fugue in A Minor, BWV 904:
• 5 I. Fantasy 02:22
• 6 II. Fugue 04:23
• Fantasy & Fugue in C Minor, BWV 906:
• 7 I. Fantasy 04:25
• 8 II. Fugue 02:33
• Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-Flat Major, Op. 110:
• 9 I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo 06:15
• 10 II. Allegro molto 02:10
• 11 III. Adagio, ma non troppo - Fuga (Allegro, ma non troppo) 10:54
• Total Runtime 47:30

Info for Bach & Beethoven: Quasi una fantasia

The artistry of Audrey Vigoureux joins two facets of pianistic playing in a unique synthesis: the fire of a passionate commitment and the crystalline clarity of a strong thought. By means of a very deep textual reading, full of intelligence and humility, she finds the foundations of a prodigiously lively spontaneity. Where others oscillate between their consciousness and their madness, the one making concessions to the other, Audrey Vigoureux achieves a continuous balance between the two. Each note she plays is underlined by a double commandment: to master and to vibrate. Audrey Vigoureux chose to record Bach and Beethoven, two composers inhabited by the fire of the fantasy, and by the crystal of the fugue. Beethoven subtitled two sonatas “Quasi una Fantasia”. The Opus 27 no. 1 is thus not a Fantasy, but a Sonata “like a Fantasy”. The composer now feels constrained within the canons of the Sonata… The Op.27 no.1 announces an unprecedented fusion in the history of music. The fusion truly operates in the Sonata op.110, stretched between extreme freedom of inspiration and formal ambition. Deeply Beethovenian, the pianist gives to Bach a lyrical breath, that he is too often missing, while taking advantage of the extraordinary clarity of her sound range in order to highlight the polyphonies. If this music maintained a barrier between Fantasy and Fugue, Audrey Vigoureux understood that the interpreter must question it and play fantasies with rigor and fugues with fantasy…

Audrey Vigoureux, piano

Audrey Vigoureux
a native of Aix-en-Provence in southern France, started studying the piano at the city’s conservatory at the age of eight. She graduated at fifteen with a gold medal and went on to the national conservatory at Nice. After studying under Odile Poisson, she applied to the Conservatoire Supérieur of Geneva and the CNSM de Paris, and was unanimously accepted for both. There followed a period of concurrent studies in Geneva and Paris, under Sébastien Risler and Jacques Rouvier respectively. She combined this with chamber music studies at the Paris Conservatory with Christian Ivaldi, Jean Mouillère and Itamar Golan.

She graduated from Paris CNSM with first-class honours in piano and a first prize for chamber music, in addition to the post-graduate degree. In Geneva she obtained the soloist diploma with honours, and won the Adolph Neumann prize awarded by the city of Geneva, in addition to the Dumont Prize and the Filipinetti Prize.

Among other prizes, she has been awarded the De Agostini Foundation prize, a first prize from the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe, the Kiefer-Hablitzel award, and a prize from the Ernst Göhner Stiftung.

Other influences include master classes with András Schiff, Charles Rosen, Bella Davidovitch, Joseph Kalinschtein, Dominique Merlet, and Jean-Claude Pennetier.

From an early age Audrey has been invited to give recitals and perform as a soloist with orchestras in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Highlights have included the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, the international festival “Les nuits pianistiques”, the Archipel festival, the “Rainbow across Europe” festival in England, the Verbier Festival and Academy, the Cité de la musique in Paris, the BFM and Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Abbey of Royaumont, the Stravinsky Auditorium in Montreux, the National Grand Theatre in Beijing, the Oriental Art Center in Shanghai, the M Theatre in Bangkok, and the Merida International Festival in Venezuela. In 2013 Audrey Vigoureux performed all of Bach’s concertos for two, three and four pianos with David Fray, Jacques Rouvier, Emmauel Christien, and the Montpellier Opera Orchestra.

She has played with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Pinchas Steinberg, the Orchestre Regional de Cannes, the Avignon Provence Orchestra, the El Sistema youth orchestra in Venezuela, and many other artists, including David Fray, Edgar Moreau, Miguel Da Silva, Sarah Nemtanu, Timothy Park, Domingo Hindoyan, Alissa Margulis, David Kadouch, Diotima Quartet,Terpsycordes Quartet…

She is also active in collaborations that straddle the boundaries between musical conventions (jazz, contemporary, electronic), working with Marc Perrenoud, Yannick Delez, Valentin Peiry, the group Piano Seven… Her interest in the possibilities offered by such cross-pollination led her in 2010 to create « Les Athénéennes Festival » in Geneva.

She just recorded a Bach and Beethoven solo piano disc under the direction of Nicolas Bartholomée. Cd’s release will be in 2015.

Audrey Vigoureux is also professor at the Haute Ecode de Musique de Genève.

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