Fêtes Galantes by Bettina Smith

Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré

Bettina Smith

Fêtes Galantes

Price: € ~~19.95~~ 13.97
Format: CD
Label: Lawo Classics
UPC: 7090020181288
Catnr: LWC 1116
Release date: 02 December 2016

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1 CD ✓ in stock	€ ~~19.95~~ 13.97	old €~~19.95~~ new € 13.97 Buy

Label
Lawo Classics

UPC
7090020181288

Catalogue number
LWC 1116

Release date
02 December 2016

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

It is a well'known and undisputed fact that Gabriel Faure played an important part in the development of the French art song in the transition between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Less well-known is that Claude Debussy too gave vital impulses to French vocal music, a fact that has long been overshadowed by his impressionist instrumental works. The French language at teh time, which was heavily influenced by the symbolist movement in art and literature, became the very path to modern French vocal msuic, taking up not only the legacy of Gounod and the French melodie, but refining and developing it in accordance with the ideals of the time: spirituality and sensuality, clarity and elegance. Fêtes galantes was originally a name for the French aristocracy's intimate garden parties and comedy plays, which with the paintings of Antoine Watteau became an independent genre in French art, and which was subsequently taken up by Paul Verlaine in his eponymous collection of poetry from 1869. Debussy's 'Fêtes galantes' might thus be seen as a fitting motto for Faure and Debussy's contribution to the French art song. These songs were originally written for the salons of the fin-de-siecle bourgeoisie, where artistocratic social conventions of the ancien regime went hand-in-hand with Baudelaire's modernist ideas to create a distinctive air of decadence.

Debussys "Fêtes galantes" könnte als passende Devise für Fauré und Debussys Beitrag zum französischen Kunstlied angesehen werden. Diese Lieder wurden ursprünglich für die Salons der fin-de-siècle-Bourgeoisie geschrieben...

Artist(s)

Bettina Smith (vocals)

Bettina Smith is from Bergen, Norway. After graduating from the Bergen Conservatory of Music, she studied with Wout Oosterkamp and Elly Ameling at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Den Haag, Holland, receiving a Masters Degree with distinction. This was followed by specialized study in Switzerland at the Zürich International Opera Studio. Bettina has since performed in Europe’s leading opera houses and concert halls and at major European festivals.
With a wide repertoire ranging from medieval to contemporary music, Bettina Smith appears regularly as an oratorio and cantata soloist, in addition to being an active chamber-musician. Her special love for the French and German art-song repertoire, makes her a frequent guest artist at festivals and concert series in Norway and abroad, together with the Dutch pianist Jan Willem Nelleke and the Norwegian pianist Einar Røttingen.
Festivals, opera houses and concert halls at which Bettina has performed include Bergen International Festival, Festspiele Zürich, Rhijnauwen Chamber Music Festival, Utrecht Early Music Festival, Mozart-Tage and Bach-Tage Luzern, Brahms Festival Den Haag, Hindemith Festival Den Haag, Stravinsky Festival 2000 Amsterdam, Staatsoper Berlin, Opernhaus Zürich, Het Muziektheater Amsterdam, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, KKL Luzern, Fresh Voices Festival San Francisco, De Doelen Rotterdam, Grieg 07, Fartein Valen Festival, Euterpe and Laudinella St. Moritz.
Bettina has recorded for Dutch, German, Swiss and Norwegian Radio and has received several prestigious scholarships, among them, the Edwin Ruud Stipend and the Herbert von Karajan Music Legacy. In 2001 she was a prizewinner in the Francesco Viñas Competition in Barcelona, where she received a special prize awarded by Dalton Baldwin for outstanding lieder singing.
She has previously released three critically acclaimed CDs on the LAWO Classics label with pianist Einar Røttingen: "Serres Chaudes" (LWC1008), with songs by Fauré, Chausson and Saint-Saëns; "Voices of Women" (LWC1067), with songs by Norwegian composers Valen, Stalheim and Hvoslef; and "Fêtes Galantes" (LWC1116), with songs by Debussy and Fauré.
Bettina Smith is Associate Professor of singing at the Faculty of Performing Arts, University of Stavanger, Norway.

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Einar Røttingen (piano)

Composer(s)

Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most prominent figures associated with impressionist music, though Debussy disliked the term when applied to his compositions. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed. Debussy's music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of non-traditional tonalities. The prominent French literary style of his period was known as Symbolism, and this movement directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant Among his most famous works are his Clair de Lune, his Three Nocturnes...

Claude Debussy was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most prominent figures associated with impressionist music, though Debussy disliked the term when applied to his compositions. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed.
Debussy's music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of non-traditional tonalities. The prominent French literary style of his period was known as Symbolism, and this movement directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant Among his most famous works are his Clair de Lune, his Three Nocturnes and his orchestral piece La Mer.

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Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Fauré was a French Romantic composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Nocturnes for piano and the songs Après un rêve and Clair de lune. Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.
Fauré's music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with the modernism of the second quarter of the 20th century. When he was born, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of Fauré's death, jazz and the atonal music of the Second Viennese School were being heard. During the last twenty years of his life, he suffered from increasing deafness. In contrast with the charm of his earlier music, his works from this period are sometimes elusive and withdrawn in character, and at other times turbulent and impassioned.

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