Simon Zaoui

CD 1 – Piano Quartet no. 1 in C minor op. 15 · Sérénade for piano and cello op. 98 · Piano Quartet no. 2 in G minor op. 45 (Simon Zaoui, Pierre Fouchenneret, Marie Chilemme, Raphaël Merlin)
CD 2 – Piano Quintet no. 1 in D minor op. 89 · Piano Quintet no. 2 in C minor op. 115 (Simon Zaoui, Quatuor Strada)
CD 3 – String Quartet in E minor op. 121 (Quatuor Strada)

Quatuor Strada: Pierre Fouchenneret and Sarah Nemtanu (violins), Lise Berthaud (viola), François Salque (cello).

Recorded 17–26 March 2021 at the Auditorium Jean-Pierre Miquel, Vincennes (24-bit/96 kHz). Artistic direction: Gabriel Le Magadure, Raphaël Merlin, Simon Zaoui, Pierre Fouchenneret. Recording, editing, mixing and mastering: Ignace Hauville. Steinway & Sons model D piano, prepared and tuned by Kuriki Masahiko.

Cover: Thomas Baltes · Photos: Thomas Baltes, Julien Poulain.

CD 1 (81'46) – Trio op. 120 · Andante op. 75 · Nocturne no. 12 op. 107 · Papillon op. 77 · Violin Sonata no. 1 op. 13 · Nocturne no. 11 op. 104 no. 1 · Cello Sonata no. 2 op. 117
CD 2 (70'15) – L’Horizon chimérique op. 118 · Romance for cello op. 69 · Berceuse op. 16 · Cello Sonata no. 1 op. 109 · Romance for violin op. 28 · Nocturne no. 13 op. 119 · Violin Sonata no. 2 op. 108

Recorded in Paris on 9–11 February, then from 29 March to 1^st April 2016, several works recorded live on 11 February 2016. Artistic direction and recording: Nicolas Bartholomée, Ignace Hauville, Clément Rousset. Editing, mixing and mastering: Clément Rousset. Simon Zaoui plays a 1960 Steinway D belonging to Joël Jobé, who tuned and prepared it.

Photos © Rémy Grandroques.

Winner of several singing competitions, David Lefort has been engaged by significant French opera houses. He thus has taken on the roles of Eumete (Le Retour d’Ulysse, with Christophe Rousset at Toulouse Capitole), Pastore (L’Orfeo at the Lyon Opera), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Don José (La Tragédie de Carmen by Bizet/Constant/Brook at the Damascus Opera in Syria), the second aunt (Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne by Philippe Boesmans with Luc Bondy and Sylvain Cambreling in the world premiere at the Paris Opera). His first record devoted to songs by Poulenc, 'Du côté d’Apollinaire', was awarded a Golden Orpheus in 2006 by the Académie du Disque Lyrique.

Simon Zaoui studied with Hortense Cartier-Bresson and Xavier Gagnepain. Then he was a student of Alain Planès and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the Paris Conservatory. An eclectic, curious pianist, passionately enamoured of the music of Gabriel Fauré, Simon Zaoui in 2011 participated in the world premiere of the sonata known as 'de Vinteuil' by the composer Claude Pascal, in the footsteps of Proust in Cabourg. For some ten years he has been invited to perform as soloist or chamber musician in Brazil, Japan, Europe, the Maghreb, Israel, as well as the great French halls and festivals, among them La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, the Serres d’Auteuil, the Folle Journée in Nantes, the Châtelet Theatre, at the Cité de la Musique, and Radio France as soloist with the Orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire.

Charles Gounod: Biondina – Venise – La Rondinella pellegrina – Oh! Dille tu!
[Piano solo: A la lune – La Veneziana – La Pervenche – Le Ruisseau]
Francesco Paolo Tosti: Non t’amo più – Tormento – L’ultima canzone
Ref. Hortus 084 – DDD – Total time: 61'02 – Barcode: 3 487 720 000 843
Worldwide distribution: Codaex

Some months passed and there I was in 1946 living in the Villa Médicis where – absorbed by different writing workshops – one day I found myself immersed in a sonata for piano and violin. Was the shadow of Proust engraved in my memory? One thing is for certain: I do not have the slightest recollection of the long hours I spent writing this sonata.

I have only performed this sonata on a few occasions, in friendly salons, with my very dear and sorely missed friend, the composer and distinguished violinist Raymond Gallois-Montbrun *

As I was thinking more of Proust when I wrote it, I chose the simple title of Sonata when it was published by Durand in 1951. Since then, it has never been performed. It took the obstinacy of an art historian, Annie Verger who, while searching in the archives of the Villa Médicis, stumbled upon the traces of a dispatch from Rome bearing the title, the Vinteuil Sonata.

In fitting with the origins of the sonata, a Proustian location was chosen for this first edition, the Grand Hôtel Cabourg. The concert was superbly organised by Yvette le Roux, President of the Proustian Literary Circle of Cabourg-Balbec and by the management of the Grand Hôtel, without forgetting Gérard Durantel, thanks to whom this CD Polymnie would not have been possible. The concert took place on November 20, 2010 and was recorded in public at the Grand Hôtel.

Claude Pascal

Yuri Kuroda, violin – Simon Zaoui, piano
Polyhymnia CD POL210579
Recorded November 20, 2010 at the Grand Hôtel de Cabourg-Balbec