Pierre Hantai

Pierre Hantai – Händel – Scarlatti (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:08:41 minutes | 1,43 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Mirare

Handel and Scarlatti together? Long ago, in Rome (for a musical joust before the most eminent cardinals), in Venice (at a masked ball where Scarlatti recognised the faceless harpsichordist: “It could be no one but the famous Saxon, or the devil”), in London (where an opera by Scarlatti was staged).

Together again under the pen of Charles Burney, who celebrated them as the two supreme masters of the harpsichord, the ‘heavenly twins’.

And together once more in the little church in Haarlem to which Pierre Hantaï returns like a pilgrim.
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Pierre Hantaï – Händel: Suites pour clavecin (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:45 minutes | 1,38 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Mirare

By the time he issued his first collection of harpsichord suites in 1720, Handel had already focused his attention entirely on opera. As soon as it was published, the set delighted music lovers and became a bestseller all over Europe. It was such a success that it was reprinted many times. Alternating between the French and Italian styles, Handel does not respect the customary sequence of dance suites of the period. But he does touch the heart. On this recording, harpsichordist Pierre Hantai brings out all the direct charm and imaginative power of these these remarkable works.
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Pierre Hantaï – Scarlatti 4 (2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:16:38 minutes | 1,58 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Mirare

A fourth volume of Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonatas from the doyen of French harpsichordists, Pierre Hantaï, of whom Gramophone said: ‘an astonishing display of dexterity in which the harpsichord he uses (a 1999 copy of an anonymous Thuringian instrument of 1720) and the acoustic help in preserving total clarity. Even at maximum velocity (did Scarlatti and his pupil reach such speeds?) he manages to shape his phrases with micro-second dwellings.
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Pierre Hantaï – Scarlatti: Sonatas, Vol. 5 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:21 minutes | 1,64 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Mirare

Viewed from a distance, the corpus of the ‘555’ keyboard sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti seem like a juggernaut as improbable as it is unsettling. Its dimensions impress, its nature intrigues. Virtually all of these sonatas, written throughout the composer’s life, employ the same mould: a single movement in binary form, very occasionally differentiated from its fellows by the name of a dance or an indication of affect, never by a title. There is also the often acrobatic instrumental technique they require, and their style of writing, austere, irregular, noisy and contrasted, which can easily bewilder even the most seasoned interpreters. One understands why the Kirkpatrick catalogue arranges things so as to attain the memorable total of ‘555’: it is necessary, at whatever cost, to humanise this gigantic non-monument.
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Pierre Hantaï – Scarlatti, Vol. 6 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:18:26 minutes | 1,59 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Mirare

No one is so eminently personal as Scarlatti: he obeys no rules but his own. When he arrived in Portugal at the age of thirty-four, he was still no more than a conventional composer, overshadowed by his father, even if he had made a reputation as an outstanding virtuoso. But the discovery of new cultures had a revelatory effect on him.

This volume 6 continues Pierre Hantaï’s exploration of the sonatas of Scarlatti.
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Pierre Hantaï – J.S. Bach: Suites Anglaises No. 2 & 6 – Concerto Italien (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:14:35 minutes | 1,46 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Mirare

Keyboard virtuoso Pierre Hantai presents a superb recital recording featuring the music of J.S. Bach. The program, played on harpsichord, centers on two of the English Suites and the beloved Italian Concerto. These three major works are interspersed with keyboard transcriptions of famous Chorales and the Fantaisie BWV944.
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Pierre Hantaï – J.S. Bach: Suites Anglaises No. 2 & 6 – Concerto Italien (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:14:35 minutes | 1,46 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Mirare

A new album from Pierre Hantaï is always an event. This recording based around Johann Sebastian Bach, gives pride of place to the Italian Concerto, and makes us rediscover the masterpieces of the cantor of Leipzig in a unique interpretation from the star French harpsichordist. A must have addition to his discography which includes a number of recordings for Mirare: Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (Book I), Goldberg Variations, and flute sonatas (with Hugo Reyne); three discs of sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti; a program of works by François Couperin; and most recently a recording of music for two harpsichords by Rameau (with Skip Sempé).
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