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Lekeu - Music for Violin, Cello and Piano

Label: Brilliant Classics

Cat No: 95739

Barcode: 5028421957395

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Chamber

Release Date: 12th April 2019

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Works

Lekeu, Guillaume

Piano Trio
Violin Sonata in G major

Artists

Bruno Monteiro (violin)
Miguel Rocha (cello)
Joao Paulo Santos (piano)

Works

Lekeu, Guillaume

Piano Trio
Violin Sonata in G major

Artists

Bruno Monteiro (violin)
Miguel Rocha (cello)
Joao Paulo Santos (piano)

About

Legend has it that in 1889, the 19-year-old Guillaume Lekeu fainted upon hearing Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in Bayreuth. Just five years later he was dead, having contracted typhoid from a contaminated sorbet.

The Belgian Lekeu left behind him a small but individual output of mostly chamber music. He found his voice as a precocious teenager, and felt able to declare at the age of 17 that his music might be ‘weird, mad, horrible, anything you like, but at least it will be original!’ Following both Wagner and his principal model, César Franck, the predominant mood of his music is melancholy: ‘Joy is a thousand times harder to paint than suffering,’ he once declared.

This album features his two best-known works. Dating from 1890, the Piano Trio is in fact one of his most restrained and least Wagnerian pieces. A complex first movement is full of fleeting expression, followed in more conventional form by a slow movement, scherzo and finale with slow introduction.

Commissioned by his fellow Belgian, the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, Lekeu’s Violin Sonata is his masterpiece. It attains a rare balance and purity of expression through a beautifully balanced relationship between the instruments and through the kind of cyclical unity of form and melody that Franck perfected.

These performances are led by the Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro, whose discography on Brilliant Classics includes widely praised albums of Schulhoff (BC95324) and Szymanowski (BC94979).

‘Every release from Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos confirms them as a tremendously adventurous and musical partnership.’ - Classical.net

‘The skills of Monteiro are well attuned to the needs of the idiom. He always sounds engaged and passionately committed, with plenty of colour and spirit in his playing.’ - MusicWeb International, reviewing the Szymanowski

‘Classical CD of the week’ in Forbes (Szymanowski)

Reviews

An emotionally-drenched sonata and trio show us a composer who was mature beyond his short-lived years. Intimate recording of passionate performances only adds to the impact. Michael Beek

BBC Music Magazine September 2019

The artists on the present CD are beautifully attuned to Lekeu’s melos. Violinist Bruno Monteiro was a student of Isidore Cohen and Shmuel Ashkenasi. He possesses a reedy, expressive sound reminiscent of Joseph Roisman of the Budapest Quartet. His regular duo partner, conductor-pianist João Paulo Santos, is a splendid chamber musician, making a lovely, full sound and always displaying flexibility for his colleagues. There is a recording of Lekeu’s violin sonata by Elmar Oliveira and Robert Koenig that exhibits violinism of the ultimate smoothness and suppleness, something Monteiro can’t touch. But Monteiro and Santos are the superior interpreters of the sonata, greatly attuned to Lekeu’s long lines and haunting, borderline macabre atmosphere.

Cellist Miguel Rocha is a worthy collaborator with these two artists in the piano trio. He has a big sound and explores the extreme world of Lekeu with tension and subtlety. Highly recommended.

David Saemann

Fanfare

Monteiro has the rich and full-blooded tone Lekeu’s violin writing requires, and Santos has all the technique in the world, which he certainly needs for Lekeu’s elaborate piano parts. The tone of the cellist, Rocha, is similar to that of Monteiro, and he fits in well into the trio. I have no complaints about the recording quality. There are sleeve notes in English and Portuguese and an attractive cover picture; this is a stylish production.

MusicWeb International

I have always had a soft spot for Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe’s 2014 recording of the Violin Sonata (CHAN 10812), and even when compared to the highly praised recording by Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien (CDA67820), this remains my favourite. Nevertheless, Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos make a good impression and are not that far behind. The Piano Trio has fared less well, with only a handful of recordings available. My introduction to the work was the Spiller Trio’s 1999 performance on the Arts label (47567-2). The work is perhaps a little too long, with the composer over-developing the thematic material. All the same, there are some attractive passages here, especially in the slow second movement where once again the composer’s passionate nature shines forth, especially in this new recording in which Monteiro, Rocha and Santos exploit the emotional element slightly more than the Spiller Trio with their slightly slower tempo. Indeed, this new recording has the edge throughout with more committed playing, as well as benefitting from better sound than the Spiller Trio were afforded on the Arts recording. The booklet notes, by Bruno Monteiro, are brief but informative and helpful. A disc I like the more I listen to it, and one which has my recommendation if you are looking for a disc that solely presents the music of Guillaume Lekeu.

MusicWeb International

It’s quite exquisite, breathtaking really, especially in this reading by Monteiro and Santos. Much as I admired the performance by Frédéric Bednarz and Natsuki Hiratsuka in 39:3, I find myself transported to an even higher level of the sublime by this new recording that captures the music’s magical ambiance in a special way. ... Amazon’s inventory offers a wider choice, including versions by Arthur Grumiaux, Lola Bobesco, Christian Ferras, and a number of others not listed by ArkivMusic. I’ve not heard the relatively recent recording by Alina Ibragimova with Cédric Tiberghien that received an urgent recommendation from Robert Maxham in 35:3. Generally, I’ve been very receptive to Ibragimova’s playing, and would no doubt like her performance of Lekeu’s sonata, but with Monteiro and Santos’s CD in hand, I can’t imagine it being bettered or wanting to trade it in for another version. ... I can’t say that this performance of the Trio by Monteiro, Santos, and cellist Miguel Rocha is better than the one by the Hochelaga Trio that blew me away in 36:2, but it’s mighty fine, and the truly exceptional performance of the Violin Sonata with which it’s paired pushes this release into the urgent recommendation category. Jerry Dubins

Fanfare

The tragically brief life of the Belgian composer Guillaume Lekeu (1870-1894) cut short a career that gave every indication of a truly major talent. Because of his early death, his surviving works are very few in number, but all show compositional gifts of unique qualities. We are indeed grateful to Bruno Monteiro, the driving force behind this importante new release for this outstanding new CD of Lekeu´s two major chamber works, in which he is magnificently partnered by João Paulo Santos and Miguel Rocha.

The Violin Sonata is virtually on a pair with Cesar Franck´s in terms of originality and consistent quality, and simply does not deserve the neglect which has befallen it. As with the Sonata, Lekeu´s Piano Trio is more than the equal of those by Fauré, and I very much hope this fine new recording achieves the sucess, artistic and comercial, it richly deserves. Bravo!

Robert Matthew-Walker

Musical Opinion July-September 2019