Jean-François Antonioli - Chopin, Brahms & Fauré: Ballades (2015)

Chopin invented a new genre when he transferred the epic form of the ballad to piano music - and made the virtuoso at the piano a narrator. BALLADES combines the outstanding works of the genre in one recording: the four great ballads by Frédéric Chopin and Johannes Brahms, plus the ballad by Gabriel Fauré, recorded in one of the most beautiful concert halls of all, the Victoria Hall in Geneva. Don't stop at elegant parallels, but reveal the view of the great drama: the Swiss pianist and conductor Jean-François Antonioli is known for an obsession with detail that leaves nothing to chance. For Antonioli, this is not an end in itself: he uses the finest nuances to create large contexts and thus immerses even well-known works in a completely new light. His recordings have received numerous awards. About his experience with the ballads by Chopin, Brahms and Fauré, Jean-François Antonioli says: "What amazed me in the concert became a certainty during the recording: The connection between these different works is the once golden rule of painters and architects - a maximum of uniformity with a maximum of diversity. "