Nathan’s Satie arrangements featured on new RTF Classical album
Released on 7 February 2025, Nathan’s arrangements of Erik Satie’s Trois Poemes D'Amour will feature on RTF Classical’s new album - Paris 1913: L'offrande lyrique - with soprano Claire Booth and pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen.
ABOUT THE ALBUM
The world premiere recording of Durey’s L’Offrande lyrique (Op. 4), six songs set to texts by Rabindranath Tagore (recipient of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Literature) in French translation by Andre Gide, is a highlight of this collection. Musically inspired by the atonality of Arnold Schoenberg’s The Book of Hanging Gardens, and often credited as the first piece of free twelve-note technique in French music, L’Offrande lyrique navigates a harmonic language which can hold clarity and vivid colour in Lumiere ! ma lumiere !, or blur into dark heavy clouded gesture in Les nuages s’entassent, effectively supporting Tagore’s language. At times, the words seem to muse over seemingly unconnected piano motifs, before meeting—sometimes harmonically, sometimes not— sometimes walking the same path, other times meandering separately again. For Paris 1913 to include a world premiere recording of such important music, written over a century ago, is thrilling, and places Durey firmly alongside his contemporaries in the cafes and salons of pre-war Paris. Far from being overshadowed by the better-known composers in this anthology, these songs stand as a testament to the strength of French melodies of the era.
PURCHASE AND HEAR NOW
To purchase or hear the recording, please visit this website (link embedded).
