By: Suzanne Canessa

This is not a game of comparisons, nor an umpteenth (re) interpretation by the musicians of the Des Équilibres chamber music ensemble. It is rather a rewriting in the footsteps of the founding father and his sonatas for piano and violin. The ensemble can also congratulate itself on a rather radical and cheerful bias: the one of never playing, neither at the beginning nor at the end of the recording, the pages of Brahms were summoned. It was also a good idea to have solicited for these contemporary composers with an already very marked identity. With Regenlied, Philippe Hersant immersed violinist Agnès Pyka and pianist Laurent Wagschal in the melancholy memory of the Sonata of the Brahmsian rain: this piece, which has become almost metaphorical with the romantic composer, gets a visceral and carnal touch through the playing of Laurent Wagschal. Nicolas Bacri’s piece, Anlehnung an Brahms, refers more to the second sonata, while also relying on a significant pulsation rather borrowed from the art of the quartet, and galvanized by a rather strong sense of exchange. Graciane Finzi’s incandescent Winternacht, is an unstoppable ode to the third sonata and its sublime second movement, you’d better prepare your handkerchiefs!