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On François-Frédéric Guy's first Chopin album Secret Garden, the pianist lets a cross-section of Chopin's works blossom on two CDs.
François-Frédéric Guy, expert in romantic German repertoire and especially Beethoven's works, describes his experience as an orchestra leader from the piano as a "thrilling tightrope act".
François-Frédéric Guy – 'The Beethoven Project'
Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 2 B-flat major, Op.19
François-Frédéric Guy, piano
Aalborg Symfoniorkester
Anna Skryleva, conductor
Dmitri Schostakowitsch, String Quarte No. 10 in A-flat major, Op. 118
Mieczysław Weinberg, String Quartet No. 11, Op. 89
Mieczysław Weinberg, Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 18
Quatuor Danel
At the piano François-Frédéric Guy made mesmerising colours, erupting into shivery cascades and subterranean rumbles, a magician with sound. (The Times, Rebecca Franks, 18/05/2022)
As an outstanding interpreter of the music of German Romantics and their forebears as well as contemporary compositions, François-Frédéric Guy is pursuing a steady international career as both a soloist and as an orchestral conductor from the piano. Alongside great conductors such as Philippe Jordan, Kent Nagano, Daniel Harding and Esa-Pekka Salonen, he regularly works with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna Symphony, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, or the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. Most recently, he has performed with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
In the 2022/23 season he will play Beethoven as guest soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra under Marc Albrecht. He will interpret Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony with the SWR Symphony Orchestra under Brad Lubman, andBrahms is on the programme with the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine and Roberto González-Monjas. After François-Frédéric Guy premiered Tristan Murail's new piano concerto L'œil du cyclone with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in 2022 and gave the British premiere with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, this season will see the German premiere with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under Stefan Asbury in Hamburg as well as a performance in Croatia with the Zagreb Philharmonic under Pascal Rophé. He will conclude his several-season-spanning Beethoven sonata cycle at Kumho Art Hall in South Korea before presenting solo recitals of Debussy and Murail at Flagey Piano Days. As one of Wigmore Hall's current portrait artists, he will also appear in London for four concerts.
Like few others, François-Frédéric Guy vividly realizes the compositional architecture of great works of the Classical and Romantic periods. He developed this ability particularly through his intensive dialogue with the music of Beethoven. His performances of the cycle of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas have already been celebrated worldwide. The pianist also has a special affinity for Bartók, Brahms, Liszt, and Prokofiev, as well as for contemporary music. He is closely associated with the composers Tristan Murail, Ivan Fedele, Marc Monnet, and Hugues Dufourt, among others.
François-Frédéric Guy regularly conducts Beethoven's piano concertos as well as works by Mozart, Chopin, and Brahms from the piano and and he now also appears on the conductor’s podium. In the dual role as pianist and conductor, he has been working closely for several years with the Sinfonia Varsovia as well as with the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, with whom he was artist-in-residence from 2017 to 2020. Guest appearances have also taken him to the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, and the Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire. Since the autumn of 2021, he has held the musical direction of the Swiss ensemble Microcosme in Genève.
Solo recitals have taken him to major concert halls in London, Milan, Berlin, Munich, Moscow, Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, and Washington, and to festivals such as the Chopin Festival Warsaw, the Beethovenfest Bonn, the Cheltenham Festival, or the Piano Festival in La Roque d'Anthéron. He was also artist-in-residence at the Arsenal de Metz from 2014 to 2017.
The centrepiece of his discography is the complete recording of the Beethoven sonatas for the Zig-Zag Territoires label, which had already released his highly acclaimed Liszt album with the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. To kick off the “Beethoven Year 2020”,, the complete recording of the Beethoven piano concertos under François-Frédéric Guy's overall direction with the Sinfonia Varsovia was released. His 2017 Brahms album of the three piano sonatas was followed in spring 2021 by a recording of Brahms's viola sonatas and trio. In the field of contemporary music, he presented his recording of Marc Monnet's piano cycle En Pièces in early 2021; a CD with the music of Tristan Murail and the Préludes of Debussy followed in 2022.
2022/2023 season
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.
Programme I - Chopin / Beethoven
F. Chopin: Nocturne Op. 48/1
F. Chopin: Ballade No. 1 Op. 23
F. Chopin: Sonata No. 3 Op. 58
L. v. Beethoven: Sonata No. 32 Op. 111
Programme II
J. Brahms: Four Pieces for Piano Op. 119
A. Schönberg: Three Piano Pieces Op. 11
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Piano Pieces IX
L. v. Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 29 in B major Op. 106 (Hammerklavier)
Programme III
J. Brahms: Piano Pieces Op. 118
L. v. Beethoven: Sonata no. 16 G major Op. 31 No. 1
F. Schubert: Sonata A major D 959
Programme IV - Préludes et harmonies
F. Liszt: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude
Tristan Murail: Le misanthrope (from Liszt and Molière)
C. Debussy: Brouillards
Tristan Murail: Mémorial
C. Debussy: Feu d’artifice
F. Liszt: Pensées des Morts
C. Debussy: Reflets dans l'eau
Tristan Murail: Cailloux dans l’eau
Tristan Murail: Résurgence
F. Liszt: Cantique d’amour
Trio with Tedi Papavrami (violin) and Xavier Phillips (cello)
"Around Schubert"
F. Schubert: Notturno E flat major Op. 148 D 897
L. v. Beethoven: Piano trio D major Op. 70,1 'Geistertrio'
F. Schubert: Piano trio No. 2 E flat major Op. 100 D 929
“For a first Chopin album, Guy’s choice of works is encompassing and effectively showcases the finesse and power this period instrument is capable of when in the right hands. Warmly recommended.”
THE CLASSIC REVIEW, Azusa Ueno, 06/02/2023
"Murail refracts the traditional concerto through the prism of the spectralist style he has made his own, in which he treats sound as a sculptor might stone, discovering what’s within. At the piano François-Frédéric Guy made mesmerising colours, erupting into shivery cascades and subterranean rumbles, a magician with sound."
The Times, Rebecca Franks, 18/05/2022
“With the First Concerto in C major, Op.15, hugging faithfully to the classicism of Haydn and Mozart, Monsieur Guy, whose delicate touch at the keyboard seems to colour every note, travelled with sure comfort and ease to Beethoven’s Fifth Concerto in E flat major, Op.73, performing the entire canon of Beethoven’s piano concerti with total commitment and dedication but, above all, with sheer enthusiasm.”
Planet Hughill, Tony Cooper, 22/01/2020
“François-Frédéric Guy, in the dual role of pianist/conductor of the Orchestre de chambre de Paris, commands with finesse and vigor in both disciplines. He also brings as much precision to the orchestration of the 23rd Mozart Concerto as he does to the impressive orchestral apparatus dreamed up by Brahms for his Second Piano Concerto. [...] A well-deserved triumph for François-Frédéric Guy, who lends the two pieces by Mozart and Brahms an innovative and uncompromising sound-image.”
On Magazine, Michel Jakubowicz, 9/10/2018
Beethoven : Sonate pour piano n°32
La Dolce Volta, 27/01/2023, LDV 98.9
La Dolce Volta, 2022, LDV 110
Odradek, Feb 2021, 10389468
François-Frédéric Guy & Sinfonia VarsoviaPrintemps des Arts de Monte Carlo, 2019, UVM085
François-Frédéric Guy & Tedi PapavramiEvidence, 2017, EVCD037
Evidence, 2016, 2436034
Zig Zag Territoires, 2013, ZZT318
Zig Zag Territoires, 2012, ZZT304
Zig Zag Territoires, 2011, ZZT111101
Zig Zag Territoires, 2010, ZZT110301