Sandrine Piau & Ensemble Contraste

Clair-Obscur

Clair-Obscur confirms Piau's exuberant, all-conquering versatility.— BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE

From the sun shining in Richard Strauss’s Tomorrow to the melancholy of his very last song. From the enigmatic and sensual La Flûte enchantée in Maurice Ravel’s Shéhérazade to the mystery of the forest in Alexander von Zemlinsky’s Waldgespräch and Ernest Chausson's Le Colibri. But also works by Johannes Brahms, Ernst Bloch and Louis Spohr...

After performing in our Requiem, soprano and harpist Sandrine Piau is returning to La Monnaie for a recital dedicated to a personal obsession of hers: the conflict between light and darkness. Accompanied by the Ensemble Contraste, she has an evening of mystery, nature and poetry for you, bringing together touching and contrasting mélodies.

Press reviews

"Piau's bright, crystalline tone and care for words reveal a mature artist at the peak of her powers." — The Sunday Times

"Piau’s exquisite singing (...) perfectly captures that unique, twilit half-world, poised between darkness and light, that characterises fin-de-siècle and early-20th-century Viennese music, and that also seeps into Strauss’s late masterpiece." — Europadisc

"In all these pieces, Sandrine Piau brings out the miracle of her musical sensitivity." — Res Musica

Downloads

• Programme and texts (892.3 kB)