Programme :
L.V. BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827)
Trio N°5 op 70 n°1 en ré majeur « les Esprits » (1808)
1 Allegro vivace e con brio – 2 Largo assai ed espressivo – 3 Presto
Trio N°7 op 97 en si bémol majeur « à l’Archiduc » (1811)
1 Allegro moderato 2 Scherzo. Allegro
3 Andante cantabile ma pero con moto 4 Allegro moderato. Presto
CHRISTOPHE GIOVANINETTI, VIOLIN
After studying music in France, Romania and Germany (notably with the members of the Amadeus Quartet), he founded the Ysaÿe Quartet in 1984, followed by the Elysée Quartet in 1995. With these ensembles, he has made numerous recordings for the Decca, Harmondia Mundi, Philips and Zig-Zag Territoires labels, and has toured the world, giving concerts in such prestigious venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, London’s Wigmore Hall and Queen Elisabeth Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.
His chamber music partners have included Augustin Dumay, Shlomo Mintz, Maria Joao Pires, Jean-Philippe Collard, Frank Braley and Michel Portal. Alongside his life as a concert artist, he also teaches at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.
Yehudi Menuhin once said of him: « I owe one of the purest musical emotions of my life to this angelic musician.
RAPHAËL CHRETIEN, CELLO
Born into a family of musicians in 1972, Raphaël Chrétien began playing the piano and cello at an early age, first with his father and then with Alain Meunier. At the age of fourteen, he was selected by Mstislav Rostropovitch to take part in his Paris masterclass devoted to Prokofiev. The following year he entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in the class of Phillippe Muller and Christian Ivaldi, where a few years later he was awarded first prizes in cello and chamber music.
During advanced courses at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and the Basel Academy of Music (Konzert Diploma), he met Miklos Perenyi, Janos Starker and Paul Tortelier, as well as Pierre Boulez, who wrote at the time: « I heard Raphaël Chrétien and was deeply impressed by his performance of Beethoven’s triple concerto at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées… ».
Winner of several international competitions, including the Martinu Special Prize at the Prague International Competition and the Grand Prize and Audience Prize at the Belgrade International Competition, then enriched by his experience as co-principal of the London Symphony Orchestra, he embarked on an intense career as a concert pianist which has led him to perform all over the world today…
A much-appreciated partner in chamber music, Raphaël Chrétien is a regular guest at many French festivals (Classique au vert-Paris, Flâneries de Reims, Les Arcs, Folles journées de Nantes, Nancyphonies, Pâques de Deauville… ) and internationally (Keihanna concert series-Japan, Moscow conservatory in America, Musicadhoy-Esp, Nordic music days, Denmark, Settimane musicale di Siena-It…); he is also one of the few European musicians invited to the famous Marlboro music festival-Usa, alongside artists such as Midori, the Julliard quartet, Andras Schiff and Mitsuko Ushida.
As a soloist, he has performed with the Orchestre National d’Ile de France, Les Siècles, the Prague Philharmonic, the Salzburg Camerata, the Guildhall Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Universitat Orchester, the Orchestre de Caen, the Orchestre de Cannes-PACA, the Basle Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Cuidad de Granada, etc. under the baton of Jiri Belohavek, Philippe Bender, Mark Foster, Philippe Herreweghe, Jean Jacques Kantorow, Gerard Korsten, Adrian Leaper, Jacques Mercier, François-Xavier Roth, Kaspar Zehnder and Ronald Zollman.
A particularly eclectic musician, his vast repertoire ranges from Bach suites for baroque instruments to the most contemporary works: he has performed or dedicated works by Nicolas Bacri, Franck Bedrossian, Paul Méfano, Piotr Moss, Philippe Schoeller, Alessandro Solbiati, Christian Lauba, Iannis Xenakis, Philippe Hersant and others, and for many years has played an active part in musical creation through numerous concerts and recordings.
His original discography, which began with the ‘first world recording’ of Alffredo Piatti’s Caprices for solo cello, has gradually expanded to include a number of titles ranging from Brahms to Ginastera, via Martinu, Duparc and Guy Ropartz, Saint-Saens, Lalo and Offenbach (duets for two cellos with Jérôme Pernoo), all discs regularly acclaimed by the press (ffff de Télérama, Recommandé par Classica, 10 de Répertoire, Sélection de l’Année du Monde, the Strad… )
MICHAËL LEVINAS, PIANO
Michaël Levinas is the son of the pianist Raïssa Levinas (1905-1994) and the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995). After studying at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris (Yvonne Loriod, Olivier Messiaen)2, Michaël Levinas attended courses at the GRM and Darmstadt (Xenakis, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ligeti). In 1974 he joined the Itinéraire ensemble, of which he was an active founding member2 alongside Tristan Murail, Gérard Grisey and Roger Tessier. He was its director and president between 1985 and 2003. As a young confidant of the painter Balthus, during his stay at the Villa Médicis in Rome from 1975 to 19773, he composed Ouverture pour une fête étrange for the Villa’s gardens. He was appointed Professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris2 in 1986. His teaching set the standard for the rest of the world. His students include Yann Robin, Oscar Strasnoy, Thomas Lacôte, Fabien Lévy, Kanako Abe, Claire Levacher, Francesco Filidei and Jean-Luc Hervé.
He was the first pianist of his generation, after Yves Nat, to record the complete Thirty-two Sonatas by Beethoven between 1988 and 1991 on the Adès label. This recording has been reissued by Universal Music. He has also performed the complete Beethoven Sonatas in concert, first in 1994 at the Salle Gaveau, and again in 2014 at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris. But it was his first CD devoted to Schumann, in particular the Krieleriana and the Fantaisie, recorded in 1982 by Adès, that launched his activity as a classical concert artist. He also devotes a large part of his playing to the chamber repertoire, and takes part in numerous European festival encounters.
His landmark recordings include the complete Études by Scriabin, the First Book of Études by Ligeti, the first volume of Préludes by Debussy, the Sonatas by Schubert, the Four Ballades by Chopin, the Diabelli Variations by Beethoven, the Carnaval and the Études symphoniques by Schumann, the First Sonata by Boulez, and the Mélodies by Fauré with singer Magali Léger.
Michael Levinas’s discography in the field of composition is distributed among several publishers.
The complete works of Michael Levinas are published by Henri Lemoine.
In 2017, Michael Levinas founded the « Stimmung Trio » alongside Christophe Giovaninetti (violinist) and Emmanuelle Bertrand (cellist).
One of the great pianists of our time, he recorded the complete Well-Tempered Clavier by Johann Sebastian Bach for Universal Music in 2003, which he performed in concert over two evenings at the Cité de la Musique in Paris in 2003.
He was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts on 18 March 20092, taking Jean-Louis Florentz’s seat, and was received into the Coupole on 15 June 2011 by François-Bernard Mâche.