Ismael Margain

Guillaume Bellom, Ismaël Margain – Mozart: Piano Four hands (2014) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 6, 2023 · Comments off

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the first to compose pieces for piano four hands. His father, Leopold, wrote in a letter of 9 July 1765: “In London Wolfgangerl wrote his first piece for four hands. Until that time no sonata for four hands had ever been composed.”

The famous Salzburg family portrait painted by Johann Nepomuk della Croce in 1780-81 (Mozarteum, Salzburg) shows Wolfgang and his sister, Nannerl, playing a duet at the piano, with Leopold, violin in hand, looking on, and his wife, Anna Maria (d. 1778), included in a picture on the wall.

The three works presented here were composed in Vienna in 1786 and 1787, when the young virtuoso was about to give up his career as a pianist in order to concentrate on the composition of operas, having been stimulated by his meeting with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte. In the summer of 1786 he composed what is probably the most ambitious and most significant of his four-hand pieces, the Sonata in F major (KV 497). It was first performed in Vienna on 4 November 1786, four months before the Andante and Variations in G major (KV 501). His last sonata for piano four hands, in C major, KV 521, was written in May 1787, when Mozart had reached his full maturity as a composer. It is characterised by the light key of C major and the virtuosity of its two fast movements (especially the first), bright and brilliant in their elegance.

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Ismaël Margain, Guillaume Bellom – Schubert (2013) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 18, 2023 · Comments off

‘Friendship and complicity’ could have been the title of this recording, made by two fine young musicians, both aged only 20.

Ismaël Margain (prize-winner in the Long-Thibaud competition 2012) and Guillaume Bellom (piano prize, Besançon Young Musicians competition 2008) illustrate the intimacy and the close sharing of musical pleasure that are major features of Schubert’s piano duets.

The composer produced 32 original compositions for piano four-hands that include some of the finest ever written, among which are the three masterpieces presented here: highly Romantic, almost symphonic works, with stormy episodes and poignant melodies of which melancholy is a dominant feature.

Revealed by the Deauville Festival and the Polignac Foundation, this talented young duo, with its rare, and heart-warming, complicity, will undoubtedly go far.

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Ismaël Margain – Fauré, Chopin: Impromptus (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 16, 2023 · Comments off

Le pianiste français Ismaël Margain, nouvellement signé chez Naïve, crée une mise en regard sensible et signifiante entre deux compositeurs majeurs du répertoire de son instrument, Chopin et Fauré.
Ce premier album du pianiste français enregistré sous le label Naïve n’a rien, en dépit de son titre, d’improvisé : Ismaël Margain y organise savamment la rencontre entre deux génies du piano, Frédéric Chopin et Gabriel Fauré, soulignant une « parenté évidente entre leurs écritures et dans leur inspiration », sans brouiller…

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Guillaume Bellom, Ismaël Margain – À deux pianos (Live at Deauville) (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 23, 2023 · Comments off

In the heart of summer, just a few steps from the beaches, two pianos were facing each other, played by Ismaël Margain and Guillaume Bellom. These two passionate young musicians impressed an audience, captivated by their four hands. They know each other perfectly, they go hand in hand and reveal the volume, the complexity, the fury and sometimes the tenderness of this romantic music. They express as well Schumann’s melancholy as Chostakovitch’s quasi-cinematographic liveliness. An intense moment, something like a short drama that was recorded by B Records for an album in relief, a black and white album.

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