FRENCH SONATAS FOR CELLO & PIANO

Artists in Brussels and Paris were to come into close contact during the Belle époque (1880-1914). Artistic societies such as Les XX, founded by the Brussels lawyer and art lover Octave Maus and Vincent d’Indy, stimulated intense collaboration and friendships between artists in every genre. The Belgian violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) gave the first performances of many works in Le Salon de La Libre Esthétique, where works by Franck, Chausson, D’Indy, Debussy and Ropartz were also often on the programme.

We have brought new life to these unjustly forgotten works as a musical testimony to a bygone era. Jan Michiels and I sincerely hope that they will once again find their place in today’s concert halls.
We prepared these pieces during the first lockdown and recorded them just before the second lockdown of the Covid-19 pandemic in Brussels in 2020. We feel deeply connected, both emotionally and artistically, to the artists and all others who have been gravely affected by this disease, and therefore dedicate this CD to the many thousands of its victims and their families, and to all doctors, nurses and carers, wherever they may be.

Viviane Spanoghe
Viviane Spanoghe has long been an established figure in Belgian musical life; her exceptional services to contemporary Belgian music were recognised when she was awarded the Fugatrofee Prize of the Union of Belgian Composers for her life’s work to date in 2020. She has premiered works by Dirk Brossé, Elias Gistelinck, Franklin and Jean Gyselynck, Marc Matthys, Peter Swinnen, Jan Van Landeghem and Annelies Van Parijs that were often composed especially for her or dedicated to her, and many of which she has made part of the concert repertoire.
Her discography is as extensive as it is varied, with first recordings of an arrangement of Beethoven’s String Trio op. 3 (published in his lifetime as a duo for piano and cello as op. 64) and the Nocturne & Saltarello by George Enescu, as well as many first recordings of works by contemporary Belgian composers, Armenian composers unknown abroad, and the Maltese composer Charles Camilleri.
Viviane Spanoghe has devoted herself intensively to teaching for four decades, 30 years of which she has spent at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels as professor of violoncello and chamber music. She also appears regularly on Belgian radio (Klara and Musique 3) and television.