Julien Libeer – Lignes Parallèles (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Julien Libeer – Lignes Parallèles (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:04:40 minutes | 1,09 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Evil Penguin Classic

On his second release for Evil Penguin, Belgian piano prodigy Julien Libeer teams up with the new ensemble Les Métamorphoses to contrast authentic and neo guises of 18th century music. The true classicists are featured on this disc with unusually restrained work: Haydn’s Passion Symphony no. 49 is broodingly solemn, Mozart’s last piano concerto no. 27 deceptively intimate.

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Lorenzo Gatto, Julien Libeer – Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos 9 “Kreutzer”, 4 & 2 (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Lorenzo Gatto, Julien Libeer – Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos 9 “Kreutzer”, 4 & 2 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:11 minutes | 1,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

The adventure began in 2012, when Gilles Ledure, director of Flagey (Brussels), suggested to Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer they should perform the complete Beethoven violin sonatas there. For these two artists, Beethoven was ‘perhaps the first composer in our history to have embodied the values of the Enlightenment in both his music and his life’. Haunted by these monuments of architecture and expression, they decided to embark on a recording. Here are three sonatas recorded in the legendary Salle de Musique of La Chaux-de-Fonds, including the famous ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata. Since his version of the Beethoven Violin Concerto (ZZT 354), Lorenzo Gatto has taken his place among the violinists who matter on the international scene.

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Lorenzo Gatto & Julien Libeer – Beethoven : Violin Sonatas No. 1, 10 & 5 “Spring” (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Lorenzo Gatto & Julien Libeer – Beethoven : Violin Sonatas No. 1, 10 & 5 “Spring” (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:10:27 minutes | 1,24 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Alpha Classics

‘Building on the success of their first disc of Beethoven violin sonatas (ALPHA240), which won a Diapason d’Or of the year (the magazine hailed ‘the birth of a great duo’) and ‘Choc’ de Classica, Lorenzo Gatto and Julien Libeer continue their complete recording of the cycle. ‘Beethoven’s sonatas have become the core of our musical lives. Rehearsed, tried out in concert, given a rest, rehearsed again.’ Since performing the entire cycle over three consecutive evenings at Flagey in Brussels in 2016, they have played them repeatedly, and they met again at the end of 2017, at the Hilversum studio in Amsterdam, to record three more sonatas: ‘Surprise, even now? . . . Anyone who frequents Beethoven for a long time is no longer surprised to be surprised. For him, everything is coherent, but nothing is written in advance.’ So they experiment here again and Julien has chosen a piano with parallel stringing: ‘The resonance of Chris Maene Straight Strung illuminates this music in a subtly different way. We enjoy ourselves.’ (Lorenzo Gatto, Julien Libeer)

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Julien Libeer – Bach Bartók (2020) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Julien Libeer – Bach Bartók (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:02:35 minutes | 973 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

Beyond their lifelong interest in keyboard instruments of all types (organ, harpsichord and clavichord in the case of Bach; modern piano as a percussion instrument in the case of Bartók), other shared concerns connect these two giants of classical music who at first glance appear to be polar opposites.

The juxtaposition of the two composers is not the least appeal of this album which also marks Julien Libeer’s first project for harmonia mundi: this ardent advocate of a clear and direct approach deftly combines keen intuition with a sense of formal rigour to bring four masterful examples of the ‘suite’ genre into a dialogue spanning across the centuries that set them apart.

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Julien Libeer, Adam Laloum – J. S. Bach & Beyond: A Well-Tempered Conversation (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Julien Libeer, Adam Laloum - J. S. Bach & Beyond: A Well-Tempered Conversation (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Julien Libeer, Adam Laloum – J. S. Bach & Beyond: A Well-Tempered Conversation (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:28:58 minutes | 1,32 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

To mark the 300th anniversary of the publication of Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Julien Libeer had the idea of presenting it in an unusual light: here he initiates a dialogue in which Bach’s major-key prelude-and-fugue pairs “converse” with later pieces (in the corresponding minor keys) by composers who, in their own way, have built upon the advances Johann Sebastian made in his foundational undertaking. Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Ligeti, and Schoenberg are all part of the conversation with the Leipzig Cantor in this intricate play of mirrors…
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