Isserlis/Shih - Music from Proust's Salons

With this programme of music for cello and piano, Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih transport us to the world immortalized in Marcel Proust�s � la recherche du temps perdu � the Parisian high society and its glittering salons. For the composers of the time these provided a perfect platform for the introduction of new works, performed by the finest musicians in France for a sympathetic, educated and rich (!) audience. And for the music-loving Proust they offered countless opportunities to meet the composers that he so admired (and others that he possibly admired slightly less�) The first of these to make his appearance in the programme is no one less than Proust�s one-time lover and lifelong friend, Reynaldo Hahn, with a brief set of Variations chantantes on a theme from a baroque opera. He is followed by Gabriel Faur�, whose music Proust gushed about in a letter to the composer: �I could write a book more than 300 pages long about it.� Proust was less expansive about Saint-Sa�ns� music even if he admired him as a pianist, but the composer�s First Cello Sonata is nevertheless the centrepiece of the programme, before Henri Duparc and Augusta Holm�s make their appearance. These were both students of C�sar Franck, whose iconic Violin Sonata in A major (here in the version for cello) closes this programme of �salon music� � in the best possible sense of the term.