Tailleferre: Violin and Piano Works

Featuring

Franco Mezzena
Bruno Mezzena
Germaine Tailleferre
Maurice Ravel

Did you know?

1/7

Performer Biography

Franco Mezzena, the violinist on this recording, plays a copy of a 1721 Stradivari violin, made by Giovanni Osvaldo Fiori in 1996.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Les Six, a group including composer Germaine Tailleferre, sought simplicity, clarity, and purity of expression, rejecting pretentiousness and musical boredom.

Composer Biography

Germaine Tailleferre, whose works are featured on this album, studied composition with Maurice Ravel, also featured on this album, until 1930.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Maurice Ravel, a French composer featured on this album, considered the violin and piano to be 'essentially two incompatible instruments,' and his Sonata for violin and piano emphasizes this irreconcilability.

Performer Biography

Bruno and Franco Mezzena, the duo on this album, have played together for twenty-five years and have had works composed specifically for them by several composers.

Composer Biography

Erik Satie, a French composer and a key figure in 20th-century music, was so impressed by Germaine Tailleferre's composition 'Jeux de plein air' that he named her his 'sister in music.'

Composer Biography

Germaine Tailleferre, a French composer featured on this album, was the only woman in 'Les Six,' a group of six musicians who rejected Romanticism and Impressionism in 1920s Paris.