Illuminated Bass by Olivier Thiery / Sophie Labandibar

Olivier Thiery / Sophie Labandibar

Illuminated Bass

Format: CD
Label: Challenge Classics
UPC: 0608917260427
Catnr: CC 72604
Release date: 12 July 2013

1 CD

Label
Challenge Classics

UPC
0608917260427

Catalogue number
CC 72604

Release date
12 July 2013

"A stunning recital that displays the bass at its most agile and thrilling"

The Strad, 03-2-2014

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

Olivier Thiery, a French double bassist from the modern school, trying to bring awareness of his instrument to a new level by proving that a double bassist isn’t the equivalent of an unmusical craftsman. As a passionate musician, he crosses borders to open up new horizons for himself and for his instrument.

“I recorded this CD mainly to prove that the double bass also sounds great as a solo instrument. I don’t aim for personal fame or popularity, I just love my instrument and I hope to inspire other people to listen to the wonderful sound of this commonly misunderstood instrument! Performing music, in general, to me means living completely in the moment, with all senses. In some concerts, as well in orchestral, chamber or solo music, you manage to lose yourself in the music; reaching this state of being is beyond words! It’s this rare and unique moment were you forget all the rest and there’s just music all around you, when the symbiosis of all your senses comes together to form a pure moment of ecstasy! And to share this moment with the audience is, in my opinion, the greatest moment of being a musician!”
Olivier Thiery

Een prachtig album met een bijzonder repertoire voor een ongebruikelijk instrument
Op dit unieke album staat de contrabas centraal, een instrument dat normaliter enkel in de begeleiding te horen is. Bassist Olivier Thiery schreef over zijn opnames dat hij het album voornamelijk had opgenomen om te bewijzen dat de contrabas ook geweldig klinkt als solo-instrument. Daarmee doelt hij niet op persoonlijke roem of populariteit, hij houd gewoon van zijn instrument, en hoopt anderen te inspireren om naar de fantastische klank van dit onbegrepen instrument te luisteren. Thiery schreef: "Voor mij betekent het uitvoeren van muziek compleet opgaan in het moment, met alle zintuigen. In sommige concerten kun je jezelf verliezen in de muziek. Het bereiken van deze staat is niet in woorden te beschrijven! Het is het zeldzame en unieke moment waarin je alles vergeet en er alleen muziek om je heen is, wanneer al je zintuigen samenkomen om een moment van pure extase te vormen. Dit moment met het publiek delen, is het mooiste wat je als musicus kan doen!"

In 2004 begon Olivier Thiery lessen te volgen bij prof. Niek de Groot aan de Folkwang Hochschule in Essen. Sinds augustus heeft hij een vaste plek als contrabassist bij het Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest.

Klassiker der Musikliteratur in einzigartigen Neuaufnahmen für Kontrabass und Klavier.

Seit 2008 ist der Kontrabassist Olivier Thiery festes Mitglied im Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Seine herausragenden Fähigkeiten brachten den jungen Franzosen schnell in dieses renommierte Weltklasse-Orchester. Daneben geht Thiery als Solist und Kammermusiker ungewöhnliche Wege, wie seine neue CD beweist. Neben zwei Originalwerken für Kontrabass und Klavier von Paul Hindemith und Giovanni Bottesini spielt der wagemutige Bassist auch Franz Schuberts Arpeggione-Sonate und arrangierte sich quasi auf den Leib die 3 Romanzen von Robert Schumann. Er selber beschreibt seine Faszination dieses Werkes, das er im Original für Oboe und Violine kennenlernte und das ihn durch sein eigenes Arrangement und Spiel näher an die Musik Schumanns brachte.
Olivier Thiery bricht alte Grenzen auf, weitet den Horizont und lässt die Zuhörer den Kontrabass auf musikalisch höchstem Niveau neu warhnehmen.

Artist(s)

Olivier Thiery (double bass)

Frenchman Olivier Thiery received his first double bass lessons at the age of fifteen from his father, George Thiery. After High School, he pursued his musical studies at the Conservatory in Toulon with Jean Pierre Resecco and then with his father at the Conservatory in Cannes. In 2004 Olivier enter the class of Prof. Niek de Groot at the Folkwang Hochschule Essen, Germany.
As a professional musician his career began with the Orchestre Français des Jeunes (French National Youth Orchestra, OFJ) and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, GMJO). Following several substitute assignments in Europe such as with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, he arrived in Amsterdam where he has been playing as a permanent member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra since August 2008.
While studying for his Concert Diploma (Master’s Degree) at the Folkwang Hochschule with Prof. Niek de Groot and also with the cellist Young Chang Cho and the pianist Dirk Mommertz, he explored the solo and chamber music literature: In 2009, this work enabled him to win a third prize in the 58th International ARD competition in Munich, and to also give numerous impressive performances as a soloist, appearing with the Bayerisches Rundfunkorchester, the Münchener Kammerorchester and in various chamber music concerts, including “Festival c’est pas classique” in Nice, the “2010 Kronberg Festival”, “musique à L’emperi” in Salon de Provence and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, with partners such as Alexei Ogrintchouk, Philippe Bernold, Gidon Kremer, Andras Schiff and Yuri Bashmet.
In addition to his concert performances, he is an enthusiastic teacher of music to private students and gives master classes. He also works as a pedagogue with youth orchestras, most recently for the Jove Orquestra Nacional de Catalunya (National Youth Orchestra of Catalonia), Spain. Since 2012, Olivier has appeared regulary as a Guest Teacher at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam for the class of Peter Stotijn.
Olivier Thiery plays an instrument made by Joseph Hel and uses bows made by Jochen Schmidt and Christophe Collinet.

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Sophie Labandibar (piano)

Composer(s)

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. Schubert already died before his 32nd birthday, but was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical and early Romantic eras and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth century.
It was in the genre of the Lied that Schubert made his most indelible mark. Prior to Schubert's influence, Lieder tended toward a strophic, syllabic treatment of text, evoking the folksong qualities engendered by the stirrings of Romantic nationalism. Schubert expanded the potentialities of the genre like no other composer before.

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Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.
Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and the Fantasie in C are among his most famous. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded.
In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara, against the wishes of her father, following a long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favour of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and had a considerable concert career as a pianist, the earnings from which, before her marriage, formed a substantial part of her father's fortune.
Schumann suffered from a mental disorder, first manifesting itself in 1833 as a severe melancholic depressive episode, which recurred several times alternating with phases of ‘exaltation’ and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted to a mental asylum, at his own request, in Endenich near Bonn. Diagnosed with "psychotic melancholia", Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness.

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Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith studied violin at the Dr Hoch's Konservatorium of Frankfurt and played from 1915 to 1923 in the Frankfurt opera. From 1921 to 1929 he played viola in the Amar Quarter, where he was advocate for contemporary music. Throughout the years, he held multiple positions as teachers, but he remained most popular as a violist. During the Second Worldwar he fleed to the USA and was given the American nationality in 1948, Later, he returned to Europe to teach at the university of Zürich.
His use rhythm, called "Motorik" by himself (a combination of Motor and Musik) is piercing, and at times even tormenting. It echoes the arrival of industralisation and the motor, as Hindemith opposes any form of sentimentality, psychology or personality. This way, Hinemith created shrill, neoclassicistic music (Gebrauchsmusik, music with a social or political aim). His body of works is quite extensive, with more than 100 compositions in all kinds of genres. Even though he was an advocate of contemporary music, he never felt affiliated with dodecaphony. He wrote several theoretic treatises, among which his Unterweisung im Tonsatz from 1937 in which Hindemith offers several systems in which the tension between intervals, harmony and melody is analysed and elevated into a compositional technique.

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