For the 2025 season it gives us enormous pleasure to welcome back some exceptional musicians, many of them among the most admired in the world of music. We are delighted that Argentine pianist Nelson Goerner and Ukrainian violinist Valeriy Sokolov have decided to contribute to Poujoula's ‘very rich hours’, after receiving standing ovations at the famous Printemps des Arts festival in Monte-Carlo. Having attended two of the most important performances of the season at the Rainier III Auditorium, we can say without hesitation that their interpretations of the Ravel and Bartók concertos have risen to the level of historical references. They were quite simply masterful in terms of virtuosity, quality of sound and emotional intensity. Great art. It should also be noted that the programme in homage to Ravel has been recorded and will be the subject of an album by Alpha, while a live concert of Bartók's concerto at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie can be viewed online.
Always keen to maintain a balance between new talent and artists committed to the spirit of Poujoula, we are also pleased to announce the arrival of young musicians who are set to make a big impact on the classical music world in the future: French pianist Jean-Paul Gasparian and Ukrainian violinist Dmytro Udovychenko, winner of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels in 2024.
The 2025 season will open on Saturday 12th July with a performance by the British quartet Pocket Sinfonia. This chamber music ensemble has made a name for itself in the transcription and interpretation of orchestral masterpieces with clarity and intimacy. After Mozart and Beethoven's Eroica last year, we will have the pleasure of hearing them in the ultimate pastoral programme: Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (transcription by Hummel) and Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream (transcription by Eleanor Corr!).
In the spirit of Glyndebourne, the concert will be preceded at 18:00 by a picnic where participants are invited to bring their own picnic to enjoy in the garden, weather permitting. The perfect amuse-bouche for the occasion.
The second concert of the season will take place on Sunday 3rd August with the Goldmund Quartet and will be preceded on Friday evening by our sponsors' dinner and a concert in the courtyard (by invitation only). The programme on the 3rd begins with an early quartet by Schubert, continues with the major works of Grazyna Bacewicz - a Polish composer who was a protégé of Padrewski and a pupil of Nadia Boulanger in Paris - and ends with Brahm’s magnificent String Quartet No 2, a lyrical piece dedicated to Joachim after his long study of Bach's work, particularly the art of counterpoint, polyphony and canonical form.
The Goldmund Quartet plays on the famous four Strads that once belonged to Paganini. One of the finest quartets of the new generation, the Goldmund Quartet has been granted a three-year extension on the loan of instruments held by the Nippon Music Foundation, proof of their excellence. In the 2024-2025 season, the quartet will embark on a major tour of the United States, Canada and Japan, culminating in a performance at Suntori Hall in Tokyo to mark the 50th anniversary of the philanthropic institution. The Goldmund Quartet has just released a new recording of works by Mendelssohn and has launched its own chamber music festival at Kloster Irsee, an idyllic cloister at the foot of the Bavarian Alps. Performing in the most prestigious concert halls, including the Philharmonie de Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the quartet has just made headlines in Munich, giving a concert at the world's largest prestige audio fair, which brought together the cream of the recording and sound reproduction industry.
The Goldmund Quartet is known for its ‘exquisite playing’ and ‘homogeneous sound levelsin benchmark interpretations of the great classical and modern works in the quartet literature’. The ‘interiorisation of the interpretation, the intonation and the phrasing worked out to the smallest detail inspire audiences all over the world’. Süddeutsche Zeitung
In concerts No. 3 and No. 4, we will have the privilege of hearing Valeriy Sokolov accompany two prodigies in contrasting programmes. Friday 22nd August will be devoted to Brahms's complete Sonatas for violin and piano, splendours of the Romantic repertoire. Purity, lyricism and sensuality rub shoulders with heroism, passion and virtuosity. Recently married, Valeriy will be able to express the full range of these feelings so dear to Brahms.
For several years now, Jean-Paul Gasparian has been receiving rave reviews from the international music press:
‘’His Chopin recalls the playing of Lipatti and Cortot ‘’(Opus Klassik)
At 29, this young man is clearly a master. His keyboard playing, with its straightforward, natural touch and unflashy virtuosity, is a noble commitment to melancholy without tears, without compromising either the sensitive plunge into troubled waters or the incandescence brought to breaking point. Gasparian travels far and carries us along. Marie-Aude Roux, Le Monde, February 2025
“A Diapason d'Or has just been awarded to Jean-Paul Gasparian's new album, Origins, dedicated to Armenian music (published by Naïve), which includes works by Komitas, Aram Khachaturian and Arno Babadjanian, as well as two pieces by his father Gérard Gasparian inspired by the poet Sayat-Nova. A superb and exciting return to his roots ‘’ (Bertrand Boissard).
Jean-Paul's Debussy album was chosen as one of the 12 best classical recordings of 2023 by Belgian magazine Crescendo, which hailed it as ‘asquaring of the circle of musical perfection and artistic imagination combined in this major reading’.
The fourth concert on Sunday 24th August will be devoted entirely to the violin, or more precisely to violins, at Les Violons-Rois. The programme includes Sonatas for two violins by Ysaÿe and Prokofiev, Bartók's Sonata for solo violin, and works by Bach and Ernst.
Born in Kharkiv and a pupil of the Russian violin school like Valeriy, Dmytro Udovychenko has successively distinguished himself in various violin competitions: second prize at the Jascha Heifetz competition in Vilnius (2017), second prize at the Josef Joachim competition in Hanover (2018), first prizes in Odessa (2021), Singapore (2022) and Montreal (2023). The crowning achievement came in 2024 when he won le concours Reine Elisabeth in Brussels, often regarded as the most prestigious in the world of violin. Conceived by Eugène Ysaÿe shortly before the Second Would War in response to a royal request - a pupil of Ysaÿe's, Queen Elisabeth was a poor musician but a passionate violinist - it is only awarded every four years, which makes it all the more precious. Among the legends who have won it are David Oïstrakh (1937, first edition), Leonid Kogan (1951), Jaime Laredo (1959) Philippe Hirschhorn (1967, ahead of Gidon Kremer), Vadim Repin (1989), Nikolaj Znaider (1997). The 2024 jury was of the highest calibre, including Augustin Dumay, Miriam Fried, Midori, Vadim Repin and Isabelle van Keulen.
Dmytro plays on a 1769 Guadagnini, the ‘Ex Kingman’, kindly made available by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben foundation. Since his victory in Brussels, the Nippon Music Foundation has loaned him a Strad from the Golden Age, the 1708 Higgins.
Regarded as one of the world's greatest classical pianists, a poet and virtuoso with a superlative touch, and a humble soul to boot, Nelson Goerner will close the season on Friday 29th August with a recital of major works from the classical and romantic repertoire. It's worth noting that the eminent American music critic David Hurwitz recently referred to Nelson's Iberia recording in support of the argument that contemporary performers sometimes rival the great interpreters of the past, in this case Alicia de Larrocha, the priestess of the works of Albéniz.
Given that the limited number of 140 seats makes it impossible to break even on ticket sales alone, the music season would never have survived since 2009 without the unfailing support of patrons, sponsors and benefactors. They are all committed to preserving a special place for people to meet and share, a little corner of happiness in a world that is, in many ways, drifting apart.
Please help us to maintain the quality of our concerts, bearing in mind that all these great musicians agree to perform at Poujoula for considerably less than the fees charged at major music festivals. We are infinitely grateful.
On behalf of the Association des Amis du Poujoula
Philippe Froehlicher Dirk Ebeling