Recital Gautier Capuçon

© Anoush Abrar

Date
4 April 2022 – 8:30pm
Place
Auditorium

One of the most eminent cellists of our time, Gautier Capuçon is particularly well-known for his chamber and concerto repertoire, and has performed with some of the world’s most prestigious musicians and orchestras. With this solo cello programme, he returns to the essence of his instrumental practice.

It includes three major works. First of all, Bach’s grandiose and majestic Cello Suite No. 1, best known for its sublime prelude. Then comes Kodály’s free and virtuoso Sonata, expressing the composer’s Gypsy music influences: the cello is played alternately with a cimbalom, harp and bagpipes. Finally, Dutilleux’s Trois Strophes, ordered by Rostropovich for the 70th anniversary of Swiss patron Paul Sacher. They are built on the musical transcription of Sacher’s surname: letters and notes, words and sounds, poetry and music become one...

Gautier Capuçon

Gautier Capuçon is truly a 21st-century ambassador for the cello. Every season, he performs with the world’s most renowned conductors and instrumentalists. Since 2014, he has also been the founder and Artistic Director of the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Mr Capuçon is acclaimed worldwide for his expressive musicality, virtuosity and the deep sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello, “L’Ambassadeur”.

Mr Capuçon has recently performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. This gave him the opportunity to collaborate with Alain Altinoglu, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Semyon Bychkov, Stéphane Denève, Valery Gergiev, Philippe Jordan, Andris Nelsons and Gianandrea Noseda. Gautier Capuçon was Artist in Residence with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano.

Over the course of his career, Mr Capuçon has forged many deep and lasting musical friendships. He is invited each season to play with the greatest orchestras, including the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, Vienna, Los Angeles and New York, as well as the Chicago, San Francisco and London Symphony Orchestras. He works with conductors such as Lionel Bringuier, Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Järvi, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andrés Orozco-Estrada and Tugan Sokhiev. He also collaborates with many contemporary composers, including Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Bryce Dessner, Richard Dubugnon, Jérôme Ducros, Henri Dutilleux, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and Jörg Widmann. Past projects include the world premiere of Tabachnik’s cello concerto Summer, as well as collaborations with Danny Elfman and Thierry Escaich.

As a chamber musician, he is invited to perform in the world’s most superb venues and at the most renowned festivals with partners such as Nicholas Angelich, Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Lisa Batiashvili, Frank Braley, Renaud Capuçon, Jérôme Ducros, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Menahem Pressler, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Yuja Wang and the Artemis and Ébène Quartets.

Discography: Recording exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics), Mr Capuçon has won multiple awards and boasts an extensive discography. Earlier recordings include Shostakovich with the Mariinsky Orchestra/Valery Gergiev, Saint-Saëns (Concerto No. 1 and La Muse et Le Poète) with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Lionel Bringuier, Schubert’s String Quintet with the Ébène Quartet; and the complete Beethoven sonatas with Frank Braley. His latest releases include the album Intuition (February 2018) recorded with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris/Douglas Boyd and pianist Jérôme Ducros, a live Schumann album with Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Bernard Haitink (January 2019), as well as the sonatas of Chopin and Franck with pianist Yuja Wang (December 2019). Since the fall of 2019, he has been presenting Les Carnets de Gautier Capuçon on France’s Radio Classique, heard daily from 5 to 6 p.m. Mr Capuçon also appears onscreen and online in programmes such as The Artist Academy, Prodiges and Now Hear This. In 2013, Deutsche Grammophon also released a live DVD of Mr Capuçon with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Gustavo Dudamel in a performance of Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1.

In October 2021, to celebrate his 40th birthday, he released the three-CD album Souvenirs of iconic chamber-music works and repertoire for solo cello.

In November 2020, he released another album, Emotions, featuring transcriptions by pianist Jérôme Ducros of works by Debussy, Satie, Elgar, Schubert and Edith Piaf, with the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris and Adrien Perruchon.

His album Sensations came out in November 2022, with transcriptions of classical works, French songs, and opera arias, accompanied by Jérôme Ducros, Lucienne Renaudin Vary, Fatma Saïd, the Ensemble Capucelli, the Orchestre National de Bretagne and Johanna Malangré. In January 2021, Mr Capuçon was promoted to the rank of Chevalier in France’s Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur.

Born in Chambéry in 1981, Gautier Capuçon began playing the cello at the age of five with Augustin Lefèbvre and studied in Paris with Annie Cochet-Zakine, Philippe Muller, then in Vienna with Heinrich Schiff. He has been awarded several first prizes in international competitions, including the Premier Grand Prix at the Concours International André Navarra in Toulouse.

The programme

Jean-Sébastien Bach
Suite pour violoncelle n°1 en sol majeur BWV 1007 (1720)
Henri Dutilleux
Trois Strophes sur le nom de Sacher (1976)
Zoltán Kodály
Sonate pour violoncelle seul op. 8 (1915)