VC Artist violist Timothy Ridout has released his new album Alto Appassionato on the Harmonia Mundi label. Ridout is joined by pianist Jonathan Ware.
The album’s carefully-curated repertoire explores the intimate and interconnected musical world of Paris at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. The program includes an eclectic selection of works for the viola by Léon Honnoré, Henri Büsser, Georges Enescu.
In addition, Ridout’s own arrangements of songs by Gabriel Fauré and César Franck’s monumental Violin Sonata are featured on the album.
Though the viola did not have a formal place in the Paris Conservatoire’s curriculum until 1894, the instrument’s resonant and rich sonic qualities make it uniquely suited to the lyrical, colorful style that is characteristic of the French musical aesthetic.
According to Ridout, the Franck sonata served as the inspiration from which the remainder of the album grew. “For many years I have adored the Franck Sonata, in both the violin and cello versions,” he tells The Violin Channel. “It’s the heart of the disc and I built the programme around it. Just a few years after the sonata was written, the Paris Conservatoire appointed their first ever Viola Professor—Théophile Laforge. Thanks to this historic turning point we have all three of the shorter original works on the disc by Enescu, Busser and Honnoré.
“Finally, I have always loved the songs by Fauré—in fact, I even sang some Fauré songs many years ago, so to make a disc centered around Paris at the turn of the century it felt it would be incomplete without some Fauré. I hope that this disc brings a glimpse into a beautiful and hugely important period of music, through the lens of the instrument I love—the viola!”
Hear the full album below:
VC Artist Timothy Ridout was a First Prize Winner at the Lionel Tertis and Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competitions, and he has been named a BBC New Generation Artist and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellow. He has appeared as a soloist with numerous ensembles, including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Camerata Salzburg, the BBC Symphony, Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. A prolific chamber musician, he joined the Bowers Program of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 2021. Ridout is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and the Kronberg Academy. He plays on a viola by Peregrino di Zanetto on loan from a generous patron of Beare’s International Violin Society.