Hélène de Montgeroult: Études Clare Hammond

• Hélène de Montgeroult (1764 - 1836): Piano Étude No. 37 in G Major:
• 1 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 37 in G Major 00:55
• Piano Étude No. 36 in F Major:
• 2 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 36 in F Major 02:19
• Piano Étude No. 35 in C Minor:
• 3 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 35 in C Minor 00:50
• Piano Étude No. 34 in F Major:
• 4 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 34 in F Major 01:19
• Piano Étude No. 28 in E Major:
• 5 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 28 in E Major 03:12
• Piano Étude No. 26 in G Major:
• 6 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 26 in G Major 01:30
• Piano Étude No. 38 in A Minor:
• 7 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 38 in A Minor 04:33
• Piano Étude No. 41 in E-Flat Major:
• 8 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 41 in E-Flat Major 03:29
• Piano Étude No. 51 in F Minor:
• 9 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 51 in F Minor 01:31
• Piano Étude No. 53 in E Minor:
• 10 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 53 in E Minor 01:45
• Piano Étude No. 52 in C Major:
• 11 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 52 in C Major 01:39
• Piano Étude No. 55 in F Minor:
• 12 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 55 in F Minor 01:35
• Piano Étude No. 66 in C Minor:
• 13 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 66 in C Minor 01:23
• Piano Étude No. 62 in E-Flat Major:
• 14 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 62 in E-Flat Major 03:03
• Piano Étude No. 65 in E-Flat Minor:
• 15 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 65 in E-Flat Minor 01:05
• Piano Étude No. 67 in B Major:
• 16 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 67 in B Major 02:30
• Piano Étude No. 74 in C Minor:
• 17 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 74 in C Minor 04:05
• Piano Étude No. 89 in A-Flat Minor:
• 18 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 89 in A-Flat Minor 04:39
• Piano Étude No. 82 in C Minor:
• 19 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 82 in C Minor 01:45
• Piano Étude No. 97 in G Minor:
• 20 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 97 in G Minor 03:40
• Piano Étude No. 99 in C Minor:
• 21 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 99 in C Minor 03:30
• Piano Étude No. 100 in B-Flat Minor:
• 22 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 100 in B-Flat Minor 01:59
• Piano Étude No. 101 in C-Sharp Major:
• 23 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 101 in C-Sharp Major 02:35
• Piano Étude No. 103 in F-Sharp Minor:
• 24 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 103 in F-Sharp Minor 02:38
• Piano Étude No. 106 in B Major:
• 25 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 106 in B Major 03:43
• Piano Étude No. 104 in G-Sharp Minor:
• 26 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 104 in G-Sharp Minor 02:04
• Piano Étude No. 107 in D Minor:
• 27 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 107 in D Minor 01:43
• Piano Étude No. 110 in A Major:
• 28 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 110 in A Major 03:00
• Piano Étude No. 111 in G Minor:
• 29 Montgeroult: Piano Étude No. 111 in G Minor 02:03
• Total Runtime 01:10:02

Info for Hélène de Montgeroult: Études

Hélène de Montgeroult’s life reads like a novel: showing a precocious musical ability as a child in pre-revolutionary France, she became fêted as one of the finest pianists and improvisers of her time. Imprisoned during an attempt to reach Naples at the time of the Revolution, she was able to return to France. Here she worked for the Institut National de Musique, only to be imprisoned again during the Reign of Terror. Finally freed for good, she was made professor of piano at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris, the first woman to occupy such a position. Meanwhile, she managed to compose an important body of work for the piano as well as a complete method, including 114 études.

In her liner notes to the album, the British pianist Clare Hammond hails Montgeroult as ‘one of the most exploratory pianistic personalities of our time’. From her output, Hammond has selected 29 études that highlight the unique talent of this composer whose music is on a par with that by Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann, displaying a harmonic audacity, textural complexity and, despite its pedagogical purpose, a singing quality and an expressive depth. Forgotten so comprehensively for such a long time, Montgeroult’s Études deserve a similar renown and popularity as those by her contemporaries.

Clare Hammond, piano

Clare Hammond
Acclaimed as a pianist of “amazing power and panache” (The Telegraph), Clare Hammond is recognised for the virtuosity and authority of her performances and has developed a “reputation for brilliantly imaginative concert programmes” (BBC Music Magazine, ‘Rising Star’). She recently won the Royal Philharmonic Society's 'Young Artist Award', in recognition of outstanding achievements in 2015. Over the past year Clare has performed at the Barbican Hall, where The Guardian described her as a "dazzling athlete", gave 5 broadcasts for BBC Radio 3 and has recorded discs for Sony, BIS and Signum. In 2014, she gave debut performances at 7 festivals across Europe, including the ‘Chopin and his Europe Festival’ in Warsaw.

Highlights in 2016 include her Royal Festival Hall debut with the Philharmonia, and a concerto tour of Poland, to include a newly discovered work by Josef Myslivecek, a mentor of Mozart. Hammond releases her third disc for BIS Records, Horae (pro clara), with solo piano music by Ken Hesketh, in May and returns to the Cheltenham and Presteigne Festivals later in the summer. Over the autumn, she curates three concerts for the BBC at the Belfast International Arts Festival, to be broadcast at a later date as part of the BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concerts series. In future seasons, Clare will make world premiere recordings of two keyboard concertos by Myslivecek with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra for BIS.

Her most recent disc release, ‘Etude’ has received unanimous critical praise for its “unfaltering bravura and conviction” (Gramophone) while the BBC Music Magazine stated that “this array of wizardry is not for the faint hearted”. ‘Etude’, and Hammond’s previous disc of music by Andrzej and Roxanna Panufnik, ‘Reflections’, have been featured on BBC Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’ and ‘CD Review’, and on radio in Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the US and Canada.

In 2014, Hammond gave a Panufnik Centenary tour of Poland with a series of recital and concerto performances, under the auspices of the British Council’s ‘Artists’ International Development Fund’. Her debut recital at the ‘Chopin and his Europe Festival’ in Warsaw was recorded for broadcast on Polish Radio. Hammond also co-curated and managed the festival ‘Panufnik 100: a family celebration’ with the Brodsky Quartet at Kings Place in London which was hailed as the “culmination of this year’s Andrzej Panufnik centenary” (The Telegraph).

Contemporary music forms an important part of Hammond’s work. She has given 24 world premieres including those of major works by composers Robert Saxton, Edwin Roxburgh, John McCabe and Arlene Sierra. In 2015, she premiered and recorded concertos for trumpet and piano by Geoffrey Gordon and Toby Young with Simon Desbruslais and the English Symphony Orchestra, to be released on Signum Records.

An active chamber musician, Hammond is a member of the Odysseus Piano Trio alongside violinist Sara Trickey and cellist Gregor Riddell. She has also worked with the Brodsky, Endellion, Badke, Dante and Piatti Quartets and in duos with Henning Kraggerud, Andrew Kennedy, Jennifer Pike, Philippe Graffin and Lawrence Power. In November 2015 she made her film debut as the younger version of Maggie Smith's character, 'Miss Shepherd', in the Alan Bennett film adaptation The Lady in the Van, directed by Nick Hytner.

Hammond completed a BA at Cambridge University, where she obtained a double first in music, and undertook postgraduate study with Ronan O’Hora at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and with Professor Rhian Samuel at City University London. She completed a doctorate on twentieth-century left-hand piano concertos in 2012 and is in demand as a speaker, regularly giving presentations for research series at universities across the UK. In 2014 she was paired with French pianist Anne Queffélec on the Philip Langridge Mentoring Scheme run by the Royal Philharmonic Society.

Hammond is grateful for the support of the Fidelio Charitable Trust, Help Musicians UK, Stradivari Trust, Ambache Charitable Trust, British Korean Society, Chandos Memorial Trust, Vernon Ellis Foundation, Polish Cultural Institute, RVW Trust, British Council, Arts Council England, John S Cohen Foundation, the Britten-Pears Foundation and the Hinrichsen Foundation.

Booklet for Hélène de Montgeroult: Études