Exceptional French pianist François-Frédéric Guy performs both volumes of Marc Monnet’s inventive, resonant and evocative En pièces, the first set of which was dedicated to him by the composer, a figure renowned for his innovative and often witty scores.

Marc Monnet’s extraordinary musical life has been auspicious from the start: he studied with Kagel and Stockhausen in Cologne, gained attention during the Darmstadt summer school and was awarded a residency at the Villa Medici. The first book of En pièces (2007) is dedicated to François-Frédéric Guy, who premiered the entire collection at the Strasbourg Musica Festival in 2012. A long artistic companionship and a real friendship bind these two artists. Francois-Frederic Guy has praised Monnet’s dazzling ability “to push piano techniques to their extreme”, as well as his “freedom of tone”, and his “Schumanian” inspiration in music of “whimsical, even fantastic, and unclassifiable character”.

Following his acclaimed appearance with Geoffroy Couteau on the Odradek release ‘L’obscur est un chemin’, François-Frédéric Guy brings his extraordinary intellect and musicianship to Monnet’s music in repertoire with which he feels a powerful and personal affinity. Guy is renowned internationally for his outstanding interpretations, especially as a Beethoven specialist, but is equally at home in contemporary repertoire.

“Guy’s whole being seems to expand into the music and he embodies an emotional involvement through rhythmic flexibility...” - Gramophone

“... such beautiful results that we travelled these 65 minutes of music in complete rapture.” - Falcinelli on L’obscur est un chemin