RECORDINGS
“Despax is a formidable pianist, thoughtful and imaginative ... This is beautiful playing, on an elegant yet substantial album.”
“82 minutes of vividly recorded French piano music ... despatched with full-blooded power and melting tenderness by Emmanuel Despax”
“The mood is sensuous, the choice irresistible … he masters the ferocious challenges with ease, delicacy, and strength”
“Despax can transform his sound and his outlook with remarkable dexterity; and whatever the spirit of the music ... he conveys it with confidence and, when necessary, bravura”
“One of the most wonderful French pianists … This recital, which celebrates the Belle Epoque, is of an exceptional level … astonishing in its ease, sonic imagination and virtuosity … a moment of pure poetry. What a great artist!”
Après un rêve
Belle Époque: Nights at the piano
Emmanuel Despax (piano)
Signum Classics (16.06.2023)
Renowned pianist Emmanuel Despax is excited to announce his latest album, Après un rêve, due for release on 16 June 2023.
The recording is a tribute to the beauty and elegance of the Belle Époque era. Despax showcases his masterful technique and interpretation of the music, bringing new life to these timeless works.
Highlights include Cécile Chaminade’s Nocturne Op.165 and Henri Duparc’s Aux étoiles, alongside Poulenc’s Les Soirées de Nazelles, Debussy’s Claire de lune, Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre, Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and of course, Fauré’s Après un rêve, in Despax’s own transcription for piano. Despax has also curated a selection of poetry to complement the repertoire heard here, a tribute to the artistic influence of his grandfather, the French poet Jacques Charpentreau.
Chopin Piano Concertos (Chamber Versions)
“[The result] is entrancing, with piano and string quintet intimately interweaving...Despax’s opening statement arrives like a blast of dynamite. Though he sinks happily into meltingly lovely reverie when Chopin’s intentions allow, he’s driven mostly by dark energy and muscular strength.”
“Played with the authority, control and enthusiasm of Despax and Chineke, the results are breath-taking”
“What beauty in his two Chopin concertos! … The tone is passionate, the virtuosity scintillating, the lyricism on the edge of the keys. The two slow movements? He sings them as a prince of phrasing. Discover Emmanuel Despax!”
“Despax’s pianism is all we know to expect from him by now: considered, eminently musical, deeply committed.”
“A version of improbable agility…Despax’s legato tone and playing are fascinating”
Chopin: Piano Concertos (Chamber Versions)
Emmanuel Despax (piano), Chineke! Chamber Ensemble
Signum Classics (22.04.2022)
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Fresh from the success of his recording of Brahms Piano Concerto No.1, Emmanuel Despax releases a stunning recording of the chamber arrangements of Chopin’s piano concerti, together with Chineke! Chamber Ensemble.
Despax comments:
“Chopin’s music has always been fascinating to me. Beneath the lyrical facade lies limitless operatic drama, craftsmanship, and above all, poetry. His style is at once universally recognisable. A Slavic soul, combined with such eclectic influences: Italian operatic lyricism, and extraordinarily rich inner lines and counterpoint derived from his love of Bach.”
Brahms
“It is that length and breadth, every dramatic incursion and the poetic parenthesis of it, that the immaculately dextrous young French virtuoso Emmanuel Despax and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in top form under the mature sway of Andrew Litton seem intent on revealing.”
“Despax is one of the great thinkers on music, and this reading is at once considered and exciting ... It is impossible not to be enamoured of this performance. ”
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 & 16 Waltzes
Emmanuel Despax (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton (conductor), Miho Kawashima (piano)
Signum Classics (02.07.2021)
Following the acclaimed Bach recording "Spira, Spera" in early 2021, Emmanuel Despax releases a recording of his most treasured piano concerto alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton. The concerto is paired with the 16 Waltzes (op.39) for piano four-hands, performed here with his wife and fellow pianist, Miho Kawashima.
Spira, Spera - Bach Transcriptions
“Despax is awe-inspiring in his combination of virtuosity and intellectual grasp. A fascinating album by a pianist of fierce intellect and consummate technique.”
“The Bach transcriptions featured here can help us find stillness better than any mindfulness tech. Despax channels the cleansing complexity of Bach.
”
Bach Transcriptions
Emmanuel Despax (piano)
Signum Classics (26.03.2021)
“Spira, Spera” is a quote from Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris, and Emmanuel Despax’s first thought as he watched the great Parisian cathedral engulfed in flames in 2019: Breathe, Hope. His second thought went to Bach, and to vivid childhood memories of attending concerts in the cathedral, listening to Bach’s organ music performed in this magnificent setting.
“This recording pays tribute to Bach’s legacy and artistry. It is the music I always turn to in most difficult times, like a compass for the soul. I wanted to highlight wonderful pianists and composers that revered Bach’s music, and who transcribed some of his greatest organ and violin works for the modern piano. I can’t wait to share it with you all."
- Emmanuel Despax
The Sound of Music Fantasy
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“At a time when we need fun and escape, Despax’s offering, released on the Signum label, allows us to revisit a cherished familar in an imaginative, glorious way. The pianism, incidentally, is phenomenal, as is Signum’s recording. Despax is in a direct line of teachers from Claudio Arrau and it is clear he has inherited a deep, burnished sound and, despite the difficulties of his own piece, a real humility that always puts the music first.”
Emmanuel Despax: The Sound of Music Fantasy
Emmanuel Despax (piano)
Signum Classics (2020)
Despax has recently released a piano fantasy based on the themes of The Sound of Music, in celebration of the musical’s 60th anniversary. The piece pays tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beautiful and iconic melodies, adding a few jazz and classical influences:
“There is a long tradition in classical music of virtuoso instrumental transcriptions based on opera, from Carmen fantasies to various Liszt transcriptions, and I wanted to do the same with a musical.
I have wonderful childhood memories watching The Sound of Music with my family, and I wanted to pay tribute to these beautiful melodies. This piece has influences ranging from jazz to classical composers like Ravel, Chopin, Liszt, Scriabin, Godowsky and Rachmaninov. There is even a small one bar quote from Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse, one of my favourite piano works hidden in there. At the start, I set out to write a small simple work using one theme, but it quickly became much more ambitious in scope. In the words of Ravel describing Scarbo, one of the most fearsome works of the piano repertoire: “perhaps I let myself get carried away”.
– Emmanuel Despax
“It’s hard to imagine it being better played than by these forces, Emmanuel Despax displaying a wide range of colours combined with an easy virtuosity ... It requires prodigious playing from soloist and orchestral musicians to make it sound as effortless as here, and that it does is tribute as much to conductor Eugene Tzigane as to Despax.”
Bronsart & Urspruch: Piano Concertos
Emmanuel Despax (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,
Eugene Tzigane (conductor)
Hyperion Records (2018)
The common thread - as so often in The Romantic Piano Concerto series - is Liszt, in whose Weimar circle both composer-pianists featured here moved. Both concertos are pleasingly substantial, and the typically demanding piano writing is powerfully dispatched by Emmanuel Despax.
The Chopin Album
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“The young artist’s poetic work of entomology left me speechless. Rarely has the text of these 24 pieces been thus read, enhancing the least articulation or pedalling detail in relation to tempi, sound weight, projection from a prelude to the next, from a group of preludes to another, transmuting his Fazioli into a 1900s Pleyel, iridescent as needs be - intimate and very beautiful. ”
Chopin: 24 Preludes Op. 28 / Berceuse Op. 57 / Barcarolle Op. 60
Emmanuel Despax (piano)
Signum Classics (2017)
Pianist Emmanuel Despax performs Chopin’s timeless collection of 24 Preludes, Op. 28, alongside the Berceuse Op. 57 and Barcarolle Op. 60. Working from the latest editions as well as original facsimiles of Chopin’s scores, Despax’s brings his own passion for the works into performances that seek to remain as truthful to the composers’s intentions as possible on a modern instrument.
The Debut Concerto Album
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“Emmanuel Despax is a formidable talent, fleet of finger, elegant of phrase and a true keyboard colourist.”
Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 2
Stephen Goss: Piano Concerto
Franck: Variations Symphoniques
Emmanuel Despax (piano), Orpheus Sinfonia, Thomas Carroll (conductor)
Signum Classics (2013)
For his debut concerto album, Emmanuel Despax recorded 3 concertos live in one concert at the Cadogan Hall in London. This concerto disc, with the Orpheus Sinfonia under Thomas Carroll, features two pillars of the romantic piano repertoire, Saint-Saëns’ ever-popular Piano Concerto No.2 and Franck’s Variations symphoniques. These works are accompanied by the premiere recording of Stephen Goss's Piano Concerto, inspired by the designs of Thomas Heatherwick.