Pascal Rogé

Fingering: Pascal Rogé According to Ravel himself, the strange title of the little piano piece composed in 1899, 'Pavane for a dead princess', should not be ascribed too much importance. He chose it m...

Ravel’s plans for a piano concerto can be traced back to 1906, but it was only in early 1929 that the composer seriously started work on one. He later stated that he wrote it “in the spirit of the con...

Two copies needed for performance This was the last concerto that Saint-Saëns wrote for his own instrument, the piano. Its subtitle has a dual meaning. Firstly, it was composed quickly in Luxor and Ca...

This composition for violoncello and piano in the style of a Sicilian dance is from Gabriel Fauré's middle creative period and was first published simultaneously in France and England in 1898, reflect...

At the beginning of the 1870s, Saint-Saëns showed a particular fondness for the violoncello. He completed his first cello sonata in December 1872, immediately after finishing his first cello concerto...

'Virtuoso piece in the style of a Hungarian rhapsody” - thus reads Ravel's entry on 'Tzigane” in the so-called 'Autobiographical Sketch”. Composed in 1924, there are three versions of this work: with...

Fauré composed his violin sonata in 1875/76 and in so doing opened up a new tradition for this genre in French music. In a review, Saint-Saëns expressed his enthusiasm for this work by his friend and...

Although Satie took the classical form as a model for his 'Sonatine', it is quintessentially an ironic work. The composer, who later in life liked to be seen walking through the streets wearing a stif...

Whereas numerous French composers of the time tried to breathe new life into the larger forms of instrumental music, Chabrier concentrated on the smaller dance and character forms. The 'Bourrée fantas...

In a typically humorous manner Satie countered the myth of the great master's 'last thought' with his 'Next-to-last thoughts' (Avant-dernières Pensées). As was usual with his piano works from 1912 onw...

With the five Nocturnes, composed in 1919, Satie concluded the series of cyclically conceived piano works that form the backbone of his oeuvre, so to speak. The pieces of the same name by John Field a...

Following the enthusiastic reception of his first Violin Sonata (HN 980), it was clear to Fauré that he would continue to write chamber music. In 1880 he wrote a little piece for cello and piano that...

As with all of his mature chamber music works Ravel also emerges as an innovator of traditional forms and techniques in his piano trio, composed in 1914. Thus the 'Passacaglia' movement corresponds to...

Fingering Piano: Pascal Rogé Fingering Violin: Ernst Schliephake Fauré's 2nd Violin Sonata was written in 1916 in Evian and Paris, the first in a series of chamber music works. It is thus one of Faure...

Originally planned only as a little duo for violin and piano, the composition grew into a sonata in autumn 1885. The first performances were more than disillusioning for Saint-Saëns, as the violinists...