Preludes

• Sergei Rachmaninoff – Prelude op. 3 no. 2 in C sharp minor, Lento 4’29
• Sergei Rachmaninoff – Ten Preludes op. 23 34’10
  • No. 1, Largo in F sharp minor 3’25
  • No. 2, Maestoso in B flat major 3’16
  • No. 3, Tempo di minuetto in D minor 3’29
  • No. 4, Andante cantabile in D major 5’14
  • No. 5, Alla marcia in G minor 3’38
  • No. 6, Andante in E flat major 2’56
  • No. 7, Allegro in C minor 2’30
  • No. 8, Allegro vivace in A flat major 3’13
  • No. 9, Presto in E flat minor 1’55
  • No. 10, Largo in G flat major 4’32
• Sergei Rachmaninoff – Thirteen Preludes op. 32 40’30
  • No. 1, Allegro vivace in C major 1’11
  • No. 2, Allegretto in B flat minor 2’59
  • No. 3, Allegro vivace in E major 2’16
  • No. 4, Allegro con brio in E minor 5’01
  • No. 5, Moderato in G major 3’32
  • No. 6, Allegro appassionato in F minor 1’21
  • No. 7, Moderato in F major 2’26
  • No. 8, Vivo in A minor 1’36
  • No. 9, Allegro moderato in A major 3’01
  • No. 10, Lento in B minor 6’28
  • No. 11, Allegretto in B major 2’13
  • No. 12, Allegro in G sharp minor 2’42
  • No. 13, Grave in D flat major 5’41

Total timing: 79’08

Jean-Baptiste Fonlupt

Jean-Baptiste Fonlupt is one of those musicians who cultivate the art of secrecy while opening up the vast garden of his poetic imagination to those who come to listen to him. An inspiring reserve that ennobles every work that falls under his fingers. A reserve combined with freedom. Both stem from his devotion to music, from the intimacy he has lived with it every day since his childhood in Grenoble, but also from his reveries during mountain walks or his journey to meet himself, where he built his relationship to the world.

From majestic and rugged landscapes to the “treasure map” of the world that fascinates the young boy and projects him towards the promises of elsewhere, the desire for space grows and pushes him to Paris and then Europe: London, Berlin, Moscow… he must go to the living source of his art, continue to feed on the best teachings initiated in beauty and kindness by his first teachers. To forget the hours of work to gain, with Bruno Rigutto, spontaneity, the emotion of the moment, the surrender to music, up to that touch of madness that gives so much flavor to expression.

To refine, with Michael Endres, elegance, clarity, and simplicity in Mozart and Schubert. To broaden his repertoire with Elisso Virssaladze, to open with her the sound space of the piano. Jean-Baptiste Fonlupt dreams of a dimension: that of the orchestra, of the opera he loves to hear everywhere he walks prestigious stages. His work on sound, variety of timbres, intense lyricism or, as the case may be, tender restraint, tend towards this ideal: to make the king of instruments forgotten, while magnifying its presence.

The walker-traveler also becomes a pilgrim. He meets composers of the past, where their works were born, from the banks of the Rhine at Bonn where Schumann’s soul hovers, to Nohant following Chopin’s footsteps, or to the Belvédère at Ravel’s home, to feel, detect what is instinctive in their music, especially in Liszt, what springs beyond the musical architecture and the rigor it imposes, and to become a storyteller or painter at will when music offers its tableaux, like that of Rachmaninov, or Stravinsky. Interpreter of his time, today’s composers, his new “heroes”, entrust him with their creations: hence Florentine Mulsant continues the line of his repertoire which begins with Bach.

The stage is his universe, where he shares the time of music alone or accompanied. And this time depends on the audience he listens to, the silence that inspires him. Like his mountains bathed in silence, it is his natural element, his space of freedom, where he knows he is happy. Then, the magic of the moment can work and musical emotion is born into the world…