Bertrand Chamayou and the Quatuor Diotima reviewed by the New Yorker!

Bertrand Chamayou plays Franck

“In another naïve disk, the up-and-coming French pianist Bertrand Chamayou takes up an even greater challenge – the music of César Franck (1822-90), the composer whom people love to hate. Belgian-born, and with a German mother, Franck was the principal entry point for the influence of Liszt and Wagner during the early years of the Third Republic. Chamayou’s straightforward but stylish and invigorating accounts of such bedrock works as the Prelude, Chorale, and Fugue, and the Symphonic Variations (the latter offered with the dynamic accompaniment of Stéphane Denève and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra) suggest that perhaps a legacy of heavy-handed performances, rather than the music itself, has limited Franck’s appeal.”

The Quatuor Diotima plays Onslow

“The notion that any substantial German influence could affect France’s triumphant achievements in art, fashion, and cuisine would be, well, incroyable. But music, the relatively weaker sibling, has always been more susceptible to developments across the Rhine. It was George Onslow (1784-1853), the son of a transplanted English nobleman, who first gave France a serious chamber-music repertory – with the help of Beethoven, whose late quartets, performed in Paris in 1828, had a galvanizing effect on Onslow’s String Quartets Op. 54-56, newly recorded by the Quatuor Diotima (Naïve). These surprisingly powerful works, heard in suave and energetic performances, reveal a composer who combined a mastery of thematic development and chromatic harmony with a lightness of touch – and a bold, operatic lyricism – that remains utterly French.”

By Russell Platt

 You can also read the reviews on the New Yorker’s website.