Marin Marais

Pièces de viole

Mirare (MIR 386) - 2018

Marin Marais has all the superior grace, the elegance and the spirit which make all the charm of the French Flavor of the XVIII century. The caracter’s pieces of his last books crunch the portraits, landscapes and small gender scene in the manner of a painter and remain a summit not already reached of viola’s repertoire.


Photo Robin Davies

  • Florence Bolton , viola da gamba
  • Benjamin Perrot, theorbo
  • Carsten Lohff, harpsichord
  • Robin Pharo, viola da gamba

Recorded made in September 2016 with the support of the castle of Chambord, the Conseil Regional Centre Val de Loire and the FCM.

Label Mirare (distribution Hamonia Mundi/PIAS)

Released: 

« This exceptional recording will surely rank among my contenders for recording of the year. Personnaly, I feel as though I’ve visited Marais’s studio and heard the sounds from his window, and these are experiences I shall treasure. »
Gramophone, J.A. Sadie, avril 2018 Gramophone Editor’s choice

“Their huge talent as colourists and the delicacy of their virtuosity (…). A rare pleasure.”There is spell-binding musical alchemy here! The La Rêveuse ensemble steal us away to lands of great elegance and great finesse!””
La Croix, E. Giuliani, Feb.24th

“This makes very lively listening : this new CD from la Rêveuse may well represent a serious challenge to Jordi Savall’s interpretation, but in a completely different register. It’s the work of a master craftsman, it’s a game of extreme precision, full of elegance”
E. Dupuy, La Dispute – France Culture, Feb.13th

“La Rêveuse provides on this CD a very fine program with Marais works, which are really impressive in their atmospheric intensity and inner force. Florence Bolton’s playing is highly sensitive and moving.”
Pizzicato, R. Franck, Feb.15th : 5 croches

“A performance of melancholy beauty which would make the most hardened of listeners shiver (…) this is one of their most intensely personal records (…) there is a confident tone, which doesn’t by any means exclude brilliance, energy and resilience (…) there is a feeling of proximity with work written three hundred years ago (…) a truly original approach which does not resort to facile sentimentality or empty posing.”
Wunderkammern, J.C. Pucek, Jan.14th :

“Each elegant gesture is perfect, every accent and all the nuances ring true”
Classiquenews, C. De Joyeuse, Jan.24th

“Uberflieger”
Musik an sich / G. Henkel 20/20

“Life loves: passionately (…) humanity in all its colours, trifling or melancholy, surge forth from the bow.”
La Vie, V. de Oliveira, Jan.10th

“A solar and languorous work”
MagCentre, D. Burtin, Jan.12th

“It’s a festival of sonorous chiaroscuro, with alternating musical rhythms and colours”
Terres de Loire, O. Rigaud, feb.15th

Extract