Salle Claude Champagne
Montréal Piano Duo
Irina Krasnyanskaya & Jean-Fabien Schneider, piano
Alain Aubut, conductor
CARL NIELSEN, Little Suite for Strings, Op.1
FRANCIS POULENC, Concerto for 2 Pianos & Orchestra (strings version)
JOHANNES BRAHMS, String quintet Op.111 (orchestral version)
“The concert featured the piano extensively, with an intense (…) moment thanks to the duo Irina Krasnyanskaya and Jean-Fabien Schneider, a Franco-Russian couple performing works for piano four hands. The sublime is attained thanks to those two highly gifted artists, with their marvelous rendition of Schubert’s Fantasie: during the exposition’s main theme, the emotional content of each note left no one insensitive.” – La Dépêche
“The Concerto for Two Pianos packs so much variety into its twenty minutes that you are left breathless by the invention, to say nothing of the beauty and high spirits.” – Music Web international
“With Concerto for two pianos, Poulenc breaks totally with the traditional concerto genre, liberating the form and the thematic development. Above all, the piece expresses the sheer pleasure of playing!” – Presto Classical
“This technically demanding work contains everything one could wish for from the mature Brahms: searching melodies woven into glowing, luxuriant textures, lyrical introspection with subdued sonorities, to youthful abandon in breathless, rhythmic passages.” – Presto Classical
