Visions Tamara Stefanovich & Pierre-Laurent Aimard

• Olivier Messiaen (1908 - 1992): Visions de l'amen, I/25:
• 1 Messiaen: Visions de l'amen, I/25: I. Amen de la création 05:48
• 2 Messiaen: Visions de l'amen, I/25: II. Amen des étoiles, de la planète à l'anneau 05:35
• 3 Messiaen: Visions de l'amen, I/25: III. Amen de l'agonie de Jésus 08:46
• 4 Messiaen: Visions de l'amen, I/25: IV. Amen du désir 11:08
• 5 Messiaen: Visions de l'amen, I/25: V. Amen des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux 08:45
• 6 Messiaen: Visions de l'amen, I/25: VI. Amen du jugement 02:50
• 7 Messiaen: Visions de l'amen, I/25: VII. Amen de la consommation 08:08
• George Enescu (1881 - 1955): Piano Suite No. 3, Op. 18 "Pièces impromptues":
• 8 Enescu: Piano Suite No. 3, Op. 18 "Pièces impromptues": VII. Carillon nocturne 06:24
• Oliver Knussen (1952 - 2018): Prayer Bell Sketch, Op. 29:
• 9 Knussen: Prayer Bell Sketch, Op. 29 07:04
• Harrison Birtwistle (1934 - 2022): Harrison's Clocks:
• 10 Birtwistle: Harrison's Clocks: IV. — 04:13
• Total Runtime 01:08:41

Info for Visions

Visions offers Tamara Stefanovich and Pierre-Laurent Aimard’s return to Pentatone, presenting a programme revolving around Messiaen’s intoxicating Visions de l‘amen for two pianos. This centrepiece is surrounded by Enescu’s Carillon nocturne, Knussen’s Prayer Bell Sketch and Clock IV from Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks. The works performed all share a fascination for the sound of bells, and Stefanovich and Aimard invite the listener on a mesmerizing acoustic journey.

Tamara Stefanovich is captivating audiences worldwide with a broad repertoire ranging from Bach to contemporary composers, and made her Pentatone debut with the critically-acclaimed album Influences (2019). Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time and as a uniquely significant interpreter of piano repertoire from every age, Pierre-Laurent Aimard enjoys an internationally celebrated career. His exclusive engagement to Pentatone has led to a complete recording of Messiaen’s Catalogue d’oiseaux (2018) and a recording of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations (2021).

Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Tamara Stefanovich, piano

Tamara Stefanovich
“Fearless, dazzling, exceptional” (The Guardian). Tamara Stefanovich is captivating audiences worldwide with her highly elaborated recital programmes, as chamber musician or soloist with the world’s leading orchestras. Being passionate about a braod repertoire from Bach to the contemporary, she has performed with the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Bamberger Symphoniker and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen amongst others. Stefanovich performs at the world’s major concert venues including Suntory Hall Tokyo and London’s Royal Albert and Wigmore Halls. She features in international festivals such as La Roque d’Antheron, Salzburger Festspiele and Beethovenfest Bonn. In the current season Stefanovich will perform at Musikfest Berlin, Muziekgebouw Amsterdam and in duo recital at Musikfest Herrenhausen.

Following a celebrated debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Kirill Petrenko and a return to the Philharmonia Orchestra under Karl-Heinz Steffens last year, highlights of the 2020/21 season include concerts with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Markus Stenz at NTR Zaterdag Matinee and Philharmonie Essen, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Iceland Philharmonic Orchestra, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest and Tamara Stefanovich’s debut with Oregon Symphony Orchestra.

Recent engagements have included performances with Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, WDR Sinfoniesorchester Köln, Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. Stefanovich also undertook an extensive US recital tour marking the 90th birthday of Pierre Boulez garnering exultant reviews.

Fruitful collaboration connects Tamara Stefanovich with composers including Pierre Boulez, George Benjamin, Hans Abrahamsen and György Kurtág. She works with chamber music partners Such as Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Matthias Goerne and regularly partners with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Jurowski and Susanna Mälkki.

Her award-winning discography includes a recording of Kurtág’s “Quasi una Fantasia” and his double concerto with Asko|Schönberg Ensemble and Reinbert de Leeuw/Jean-Guihen Queyras for ECM. She received the Edison Award and her recording of Bartók’s Concerto for two pianos, percussion and orchestra with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Pierre Boulez (Deutsche Grammophon) was nominated for a Grammy Award. Following her first solo recording with works by Bach and Bartók Tamara is dedicating her second album “Influences” to works of Ives, Bartók, Messiaen and Bach. Since its release on Pentatone in March 2019 “Influences” has received five star reviews and been praised by critics.

Tamara regularly leads educational projects at London’s Barbican Centre, Kölner Philharmonie and at Klavier-Festival Ruhr such as the innovative online project of interactive pedagogical analyses Boulez’ Notations: www.explorethescore.org. She was co-founder and curator of Portland International Piano’s Festival “The Clearing”. A convinced European she studied in Belgrade, at Curtis Institute and at Colognes Musikhochschule.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard
is widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time and has had close collaborations with many leading composers including György Ligeti whose complete works for piano he has recorded. He has also worked with Stockhausen, George Benjamin, and Pierre Boulez who appointed Aimard, aged 19, to become the Ensemble intercontemporain´s first solo pianist. Praised by The Guardian as “one of the best Messiaen interpreters around” Aimard has had a close association to the composer himself and with Yvonne Loriod, with whom he studied at the Paris Conservatoire.

In the 2021/22 season he continues to tour internationally working closely with leading orchestras and conductors including Münchner Philharmoniker/Nagano, Philharmonia Orchestra/Heras-Casado, hr-Sinfonieorchester/Altinoglu, Wiener Symphoniker/Afkham and San Francisco Symphony/Salonen with whom he will record Bartók’s Piano Concertos Nos.1&3.

In recital and chamber projects, Aimard remains committed to championing contemporary composers, performing works this season by Klaus Ospald and Mark Andre. He will also give performances of Messiaen’s Vingt Regards at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and collaborate with leading instrumentalists Mark Simpson and Jean-Guihen Queyras for trio recitals including works by Lachenmann at the Auditorio Nacional de Música and Elbphilharmonie.

Deemed an “extraordinary visionary” by the Washington Post and a pioneer artist renowned for his revelatory insights, Aimard was awarded the prestigious 2017 International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in recognition of a life devoted to the service of music. That was no truer than in the 2020/21 season when Aimard created a unique and personal take on Beethoven’s legacy in a recital programme called ‘Beethoven the Avant-gardist’ developed in response to the composer’s 250th anniversary year. The juxtaposition of Viennese classics with compositions of the avant-garde revealed surprising cross-references, with Zachary Woolfe in the NY Times commenting “ [Mr Aimard’s] overarching agenda came through with clarity, attesting to the strength of his vision and the savvy of his juxtapositions.” Other highlights of the season included recitals in Paris for Bach’s Well Tempered Klavier, appearances at Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen for Birtwistle’s Keyboard Engine for two pianos and the BBC Proms for Ravel’s Concerto in G Major alongside Sir George Benjamin and Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Having recently released a new disc of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations for Pentatone to great critical acclaim, Aimard is also due to release a new recording of Visions de l’Amen with Tamara Stefanovich in 2022. Recent seasons have also included the release of Messiaen’s opus magnum Catalogue d’oiseaux for Pentatone, which was honoured with multiple awards including the prestigious German music critic’s award “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.” Aimard has also performed the world premieres of piano works by Kurtág at Teatro alla Scala; Carter’s last piece Epigrams, which was written for him; Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s works Responses; Sweet disorder and the carefully careless and Keyboard Engine for two pianos which received its London premiere in autumn 2019.

An innovative curator and uniquely significant interpreter of piano repertoire from every age, Aimard has been invited to direct and perform in a number of residencies including most recently for Musikkollegium Winterthur where over the season he celebrated a number of different composers and opened with the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos. Elsewhere, he has performed ground-breaking projects at Porto’s Casa da Musica, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Konzerthaus Vienna, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Lucerne Festival, Mozarteum Salzburg, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Tanglewood Festival, the Edinburgh Festival, and was Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 2009 to 2016.

Through his professorship at the Hochschule Köln as well as numerous series of concert lectures and workshops worldwide, Aimard sheds an inspiring light on music of all periods. He was previously an Associate Professor at the College de France, Paris and is a member of Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste. He will take up the position as Head of New Music at the Reina Sofía School, Madrid in autumn 2021. In spring 2020, he re-launched a major online resource Explore the Score, after several years work, which centres on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music in collaboration with the Klavier-Festival Ruhr.

Booklet for Visions