Berlioz: Harold en Italie - La mort de Cléopâtre Antoine Tamestit

• Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): Harold en Italie, Op 16 (1834)
• 1 I. Harold aux Montagnes. Scenes de melancolie, de bonheur et de joie: Adagio 15:07
• 2 II. Marche de pelerins chantant la priere du soir: Allegretto 07:59
• 3 III. Serenade d'un montagnard des Abruzzes a sa maitresse: Allegro assai 06:26
• 4 IV. Orgie de brigands. Souvenirs des scenes precedentes: Allegro frenetico 12:56
• La mort de Cléopâtre (1829)
• 5 Allegro vivace con impeto - Lento cantabile 09:36
• 6 Largo misterioso - Allegro assai agitato 11:05
• Total Runtime 01:03:09

Info for Berlioz: Harold en Italie - La mort de Cléopâtre

Violist Antoine Tamestit and mezzo-soprano, Karen Cargill, join forces with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, in the latest instalment of their Berlioz exploration.

Composed in 1834 at the suggestion of Paganini and completed in Montmartre, 'Harold en Italie' received its first performance at the Conservatoire de Paris later that year. Taking inspiration from Lord Byron’s 'Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage', 'Harold en Italie' is among the most poetic of Berlioz’s oeuvre, its ingenious use of solo viola charting the dreamy Harold’s wanderings throughout the Italian countryside and the characters encountered along the way. In this new recording Antoine Tamestit brings a forthright personality to the hero.

“Maestro Gergiev’s deep musicianship added the sort of instinctive passion one needs with Berlioz and especially with 'Harold en Italie'. All of this was overwhelmingly inspiring for me and made these concerts and recordings a truly unique and unforgettable experience,” says Tamestit. Karen Cargill gives an emotionally intense performance of the dramatic cantata for 'La mort de Cléopâtre' adding to her already formidable reputation in the Berlioz canon. She says, “La mort de Cléopâtre is a monumental work, grand in drama, orchestration and vocally challenging. The scope of the piece is huge, not only emotionally – it has a vocal range of over two octaves within only a few pages, ultimately quite operatic in delivery. Pacing the work is a huge part of performing it, allowing the character to recollect, reflect and ultimately act. The death scene is so wonderfully written, so simple and real.”

London Symphony Orchestra
Antoine Tamestit, viola
Karen Cargill, mezzo-soprano
Valery Gergiev, conductor

Antoine Tamestit
has achieved the rare distinction as a violist, playing at the highest level as a soloist and in constant demand as a chamber musician and recitalist. He is recognised for his peerless technique and his profound, natural musicianship, and known too for the beauty of his sound with its rich, deep, burnished quality.

Tamestit’s repertoire ranges from the Baroque (he has arranged and recorded Bach’s Cello Suites for Viola) to the contemporary. He has performed and recorded several world premieres and in the 2015/16 season gave the world premiere of the viola concerto by Jörg Widmann with the Orchestre de Paris and Paavo Järvi. The work, which was composed especially for Tamestit, pushes the boundaries of the solo concerto genre and was met with great acclaim: “One of the most gifted French musicians of the era... The work is made to measure for Tamestit, his style of playing, his tone, his personality.” Le Figaro. Tamestit gave subsequent performances with the Swedish Radio Symphony and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding. In the 2016/17 season he will perform the concerto with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Joshua Weilerstein.

Engagements in 2016-17 season include concerto performances with the London Symphony Orchestra and François-Xavier Roth at the Barbican and on tour, with the Philharmonia and Vladimir Ashkenazy, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Orchestre National de Bordeaux Aquitaine. Tamestit will also play/direct the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris.

Antoine Tamestit has also worked with the Vienna Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Czech Philharmonic, Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchestra Berlin, Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, , and with the several BBC symphony orchestras. He made his Russian debut at the Stars of the White Nights festival in 2014.

Tamestit plays in the string trio with Frank Peter Zimmermann and Christian Poltera with whom he has recorded Mozart Divertimento and Beethoven Trio Op.9 for Bis Records. This season the Trio Zimmermann will perform in Amsterdam, Zürich, Graz, Luxembourg, Warsaw, Dortmund, Dusseldorf and Milan. Other chamber engagements in the 2016/17 season include trio performances with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Mark Simpson at the Edinburgh International Festival, Salzburg Festival, Cologne Philharmonie and Festival de Musique de Strasbourg, recitals at Konzerthaus Berlin and Wigmore Hall with Cédric Tiberghien, and in a solo recital at The Frick Collection in New York.

Other chamber music partners include a trio with Jörg Widmann and Francesco Piemontesi, Leonidas Kavakos, Gautier Capucon, Emmanuel Ax, Gidon Kremer, Christian Tetzlaff, Emmanuel Pahud, Martin Fröst, Nicholas Angelich, Shai Wosner and Ebene and Hagen Quartets.

Antoine Tamestit’s distinguished discography includes Berlioz’s Harold en Italie, which was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev and released in 2015 by LSO Live. For Naïve he has recorded three of the Bach Suites, Hindemith solo and concertante works recorded with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Paavo Järvi, and an earlier recording of Harold en Italie with Marc Minkowski and Les Musicians du Louvre. In 2016 he appeared with Frank Peter Zimmermann and the Chamber Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra on a new recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante (Hännsler Classic).

Other notable recordings include solo works by Bach and Ligeti (Naïve/Ambroisie), Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante with Renaud Capuçon, Louis Langrée and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Virgin Classics) and the Schnittke Concerto with Warsaw Philharmonic and Kitajenko (Naïve/Ambroisie).

Tamestit’s world premiere performances and recordings, in addition to Jörg Widmann’s Viola Concerto, include George Benjamin’s Viola, Viola with Tabea Zimmermann for Nimbus Records, the Concerto for Two Violas by Bruno Mantovani written for Tabea Zimmermann and Tamestit, and Olga Neuwirth’s Remnants of Songs.

Together with Nobuko Imai, Antoine Tamestit is co-artistic director of the Viola Space Festival in Tokyo, focusing on the development of viola repertoire and a wide range of education programmes.

Born in Paris, Antoine Tamestit studied with Jesse Levine at Yale University and with Tabea Zimmermann. He was the recipient of several coveted prizes including the William Primrose Competition and the first prize at the Young Concert Artists (YCA) International Auditions, BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists Scheme, Borletti- Buitoni Trust Award and the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2009.

Antoine Tamestit plays on a viola made by Stradivarius in 1672, loaned by the Habisreutinger Foundation.

Booklet for Berlioz: Harold en Italie - La mort de Cléopâtre