Montgeroult - Etudes

£13.25

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Despatch Information

This despatch estimate is based on information from both our own stock and the UK supplier's stock.

If ordering multiple items, we will aim to send everything together so the longest despatch estimate will apply to the complete order.

If you would rather receive certain items more quickly, please place them on a separate order.

If any unexpected delays occur, we will keep you informed of progress via email and not allow other items on the order to be held up.

If you would prefer to receive everything together regardless of any delay, please let us know via email.

Pre-orders will be despatched as close as possible to the release date.

Label: BIS

Cat No: BIS2603

Format: Hybrid SACD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Instrumental

Release Date: 4th November 2022

Works

Montgeroult, Helene de

Complete Course for the instruction of the pianoforte

» Etude no.26 in G major

» Etude no.28 in E major

» Etude no.34 in F major

» Etude no.35 in C minor

» Etude no.36 in F major

» Etude no.37 in G major

» Etude no.38 in A minor

» Etude no.41 in E flat major

» Etude no.51 in F minor

» Etude no.52 in C major

» Etude no.53 in E minor

» Etude no.55 in F minor

» Etude no.62 in E flat major

» Etude no.65 in E flat minor

» Etude no.66 in C minor

» Etude no.67 in B major

» Etude no.74 in C minor

» Etude no.82 in C minor

» Etude no.89 in A flat minor

» Etude no.97 in G minor

» Etude no.99 in C minor

» Etude no.100 in B flat minor

» Etude no.101 in C sharp major

» Etude no.103 in F sharp minor

» Etude no.104 in G sharp minor

» Etude no.106 in B major

» Etude no.107 in D minor

» Etude no.110 in A major

» Etude no.111 in G minor

Artists

Clare Hammond (piano)

Works

Montgeroult, Helene de

Complete Course for the instruction of the pianoforte

» Etude no.26 in G major

» Etude no.28 in E major

» Etude no.34 in F major

» Etude no.35 in C minor

» Etude no.36 in F major

» Etude no.37 in G major

» Etude no.38 in A minor

» Etude no.41 in E flat major

» Etude no.51 in F minor

» Etude no.52 in C major

» Etude no.53 in E minor

» Etude no.55 in F minor

» Etude no.62 in E flat major

» Etude no.65 in E flat minor

» Etude no.66 in C minor

» Etude no.67 in B major

» Etude no.74 in C minor

» Etude no.82 in C minor

» Etude no.89 in A flat minor

» Etude no.97 in G minor

» Etude no.99 in C minor

» Etude no.100 in B flat minor

» Etude no.101 in C sharp major

» Etude no.103 in F sharp minor

» Etude no.104 in G sharp minor

» Etude no.106 in B major

» Etude no.107 in D minor

» Etude no.110 in A major

» Etude no.111 in G minor

Artists

Clare Hammond (piano)

About

Hélène de Montgeroult’s life reads like a novel: showing a precocious musical ability as a child in pre-revolutionary France, she became fêted as one of the finest pianists and improvisers of her time. Imprisoned during an attempt to reach Naples at the time of the Revolution, she was able to return to France. Here she worked for the Institut National de Musique, only to be imprisoned again during the Reign of Terror. Finally freed for good, she was made professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris, the first woman to occupy such a position. Meanwhile, she managed to compose an important body of work for the piano as well as a complete method, including 114 études.

In her liner notes to the disc, the British pianist Clare Hammond hails Montgeroult as ‘one of the most exploratory pianistic personalities of our time’. From her output, Hammond has selected 29 études that highlight the unique talent of this composer whose music is on a par with that by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann, displaying a harmonic audacity, textural complexity and, despite its pedagogical purpose, a singing quality and an expressive depth. Forgotten so comprehensively for such a long time, Montgeroult’s Études deserve a similar renown and popularity as those by her contemporaries.

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Étude no.37 in G major (l.h.): Pour apprendre à toucher les notes mêlées dans la partie droite
2

Étude no.36 in F major: Pour apprendre à lier le chant
3

Étude no.35 in C minor: Sur les temps coupés
4

Étude no.34 in F major (r.h.): Pour donner aux doigts de la souplesse
5

Étude no.28 in E major (r.h.): Pour jouer un chant qui porte son accompagnement de la même main
6

Étude no.26 in G major (r.h.): Pour bien exprimer le chant d’une batterie par trois
7

Étude no.38 in A minor: Pour bien accorder le chant avec l’accompagnement
8

Étude no.41 in E flat major (r.h.): Étude de batterie chantante par trois
9

Étude no.51 in F minor (l.h.): Pour parcourir le clavier d’une manière liée
10

Étude no.53 in E minor (r.h.): Pour en accroître la vitesse
11

Étude no.52 in C major (l.h.): Pour qu’elle joue près de la droite sans confusion
12

Étude no.55 in F minor (r.h.): Pour mettre rapidement deux doigts sure la même note
13

Étude no.66 in C minor (l.h.): Pour les basses faites à contre temps
14

Étude no.62 in E flat major (l.h.): Pour apprendre à chanter en se croisant sur la droite
15

Étude no.65 in E flat minor: Pour les temps coupés et les mains croisées
16

Étude no.67 in B major: Pour acquérir une exécution large quoique dans un mouvement vif et parcourant le clavier
17

Étude no.74 in C minor (l.h.): Sur les Octave
18

Étude no.89 in A flat minor: Pour la difficulté du ton
19

Étude no.82 in C minor (l.h.): Pour rendre les doigts indépendants
20

Étude no.97 in G minor: Pour l’énergie du jeu
21

Étude no.99 in C minor: Pour la difficulté de la mesure
22

Étude no.100 in B flat minor: Pour obtenir l’égalité des deux mains répétant le même trait dans un mouvement très vif
23

Étude no.101 in C sharp major: Pour la difficulté du ton
24

Étude no.103 in F sharp minor: Pour l’accord des deux mains contrarié par le mouvement des parties
25

Étude no.106 in B major: Qui doivent chacune faire une partie de chant et d’accompagnement
26

Étude no.104 in G sharp minor: Pour la difficulté du ton dans un mouvement agité
27

Étude no.107 in D minor (l.h.): Pour lui donner la rapidité dans un trait continu
28

Étude no.110 in A major: Pour chanter d’un style large
29

Étude no.111 in G minor: Pour réunir l’expression à la vitesse

Europadisc Review

If you’ve heard the name of French pianist-composer Hélène de Montgeroult (1764 – 1836) at all before now, it’s likely because BBC Radio 3 devoted its ‘Composer of the Week’ slot to her earlier this year. Recordings of her music are rare, those devoted to it rarer still: British pianist Clare Hammond’s new disc of 29 Études from Montgeroult’s Cours complet pour l’enseignement du forte-piano (1816) is only the third in the current catalogue. And yet here we have music that, in the words of Montgeroult expert Jérôme Dorival, provides the ‘missing link between Mozart and Chopin’. As this BIS recording proves, far from being the normal sales puff, this claim turns out to be spot on. Although Montgeroult was less than a decade younger than Mozart, her Études – composed between 1788 and 1812 – are strikingly prescient of the Romanticism of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann and even Brahms.

How to explain this astonishing neglect? Montgeroult had the misfortune to be born not just a woman in an age when only men were supposed to be composers, but also an aristocrat (her maiden name was Hélène de Nervo) at a time when young ladies did nothing so vulgar as perform in public. Her own playing was restricted to the salons of the nobility, where it was appreciated by a tiny group of connoisseurs. In 1784 she married the Marquis de Montgeroult, but the early 1790s were not a good time for members of the French aristocracy. While attempting to flee to Naples in 1793, the couple were captured by Austrian soldiers, and the Marquis died in custody. On her return to France, Montgeroult only escaped an even worse fate at the hands of the Committee for Public Safety by improvising a set of variations on the Marseillaise: such a talent could prove useful to the new regime, and she was appointed the first woman professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire.

Montgeroult’s tenure at the Conservatoire was brief – she may have left because she was snubbed in favour of a less gifted male colleague to write the official piano course for the institution. Her own Cours complet, published in three volumes, is encyclopaedic in its scope, with a vast number of purely technical exercises (scales, arpeggios and the like), all provided with extensive commentaries, and culminating in an astonishing series of 114 Études. Surviving copies of the Cours complet number only 24 (that by her pupil J.B. Cramer numbers 100 times more), and only since the 1990s – almost entirely thanks to the devoted efforts of Jérôme Dorival – has her output at last become better known to a select group of musicians and, more recently, the wider music-loving public.

Clare Hammond was introduced to Montgeroult’s music as recently as 2019, and she used the opportunity given by the Covid lockdowns to make an intensive study of the composer’s music, carefully searching for the ideal balance between the singing tone which Montgeroult so valued (again anticipating Chopin) and the richness of harmonic shading and heightened expression. There are indications that both the Mendelssohns and the Schumanns may have come into contact with Montgeroult’s teaching legacy during their own years of study, and Hammond’s selection of 29 Études – roughly a quarter of the total collection – contains plenty of examples of their composer’s extraordinary inventiveness and depth of expression. Some of these pieces are intended to focus on strengthening the capability of the left or right hand in particular, others more generally with achieving tonal suppleness and dexterity, yet none come across as mere exercises – a tribute not just to Montgeroult’s visionary talent, but to Hammond’s own careful honing in repertoire that is still scarcely explored by most pianists.

Dip into this disc at any point and you are likely to be amazed, as we were, by the extraordinary richness and variety of expression. The later Études in particular contain music of remarkable maturity, such as No.106 in B major, anticipating Brahms’s late chorale preludes, and the nocturne-like No.110 in A major. There are pieces of astonishing fleetness (nos. 53, 55, 97 and 107), and others of quite remarkable tenderness and emotional depth. No.34 in F major is particularly charming, as is a variant on the same motif in No.36, and the listener is eased into the selection with the gently billowing waves of No.37 in G major. Time and again, you’ll find yourself pinching yourself to realise that these pieces are not better known. Among our own particular favourites are the Schubertian expressivity and textures of No.62 in E flat and No.97 in G minor. But above all, it is the marriage of true cantabile tone and a heightened proto-Romantic sensibility that makes this collection – and Hammond’s performances – so unnervingly astonishing. No doubt at some point soon someone will record the complete collection of Montgeroult’s Études, but it is unlikely that they will match, let alone surpass, Clare Hammond’s achievement on this marvellously recorded new album from BIS. At a time when any minor scraps by great or neglected composers are hailed as discoveries, Hélène de Montgeroult is the real deal: absolutely essential listening, and not just for pianophiles.

Reviews

Montgeroult, in my opinion, deserves every bit of the attention she is now so belatedly receiving. ... Nimbly executed, sensitively phrased and beautifully recorded (Wyastone Concert Hall), Clare Hammond has left all pianophiles in her debt. ‘How can music of this quality and vision’, she asks, ‘be forgotten so comprehensively for so long?’ Indeed. An early contender for next year’s Gramophone Awards. Jeremy Nicholas

Gramophone December 2022

The British pianist Clare Hammond, on Hélène de Montgeroult: Etudes (BIS), has recorded 29 of the composer’s studies, showing that this miniature form has artistic worth, as well as the pedagogic value the name implies. ... Montgeroult encapsulates the musical journey from classical to romantic, her artistic compass firmly pointing forward. Fiona Maddocks

The Observer 23 October 2022

Error on this page? Let us know here

Need more information on this product? Click here

Montgeroult - Etudes

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Despatch Information

Contents

Works

Artists

Works

Artists

About

Sound/Video

Paused

Europadisc Review

Reviews