French Holidays John Finucane & Elisaveta Blumina

• Jean Françaix (1912-1997):
• 1 Tema con variazioni 09:22
• Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937):
• 2 Introduction et rondo, Op. 72 08:40
• Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Clarinet Sonata, FP 184:
• 3 I. Allegro tristamente 05:20
• 4 II. Romanza 05:20
• 5 III. Allegro con fuoco 03:20
• Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Clarinet Sonata in E-Flat Major, Op. 167, R. 147:
• 6 I. Allegretto 05:03
• 7 II. Allegro animato 02:33
• 8 III. Lento 04:00
• 9 IV. Molto allegro - Allegretto 05:27
• Gabriel Pierné (1863-1937):
• 10 Canzonetta, Op. 19 04:09
• Anonymous, Gabriel Grovlez (1879-1944):
• 11 Sarabande et Allegro (arr. for clarinet and piano) 06:04
• Claude Debussy (1862-1918):
• 12 Première rhapsodie, L. 116 08:21
• Total Runtime 01:07:39

Info for French Holidays

Feather-light music played as light as a feather: this is John Finucane’s first GENUIN release in a nutshell. He joins on the recording with piano partner Elisaveta Blumina, who has already appeared on three CDs with the Leipzig label. In this exquisite combination of French Romanticism and Post-Romanticism, the virtuoso Irish clarinetist does not betray the slightest hint that he is performing some of the most challenging pieces written for his instrument. Works by Debussy, Françaix, Saint-Saëns, and Widor are played with such joy and naturalness that we feel transported to the world of Paul Verlaine or Marcel Proust... Bon voyage, dear listeners!

John Finucane, clarinet
Elisaveta Blumina, piano

John Finucane
who has been Principal Clarinet with Ireland's RTE National Symphony Orchestra since 1995, has also had an active career as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor in Ireland and abroad. Described by Gramophone magazine as 'an outstanding virtuoso', on the release of his CD “Clarinet Variations,” he has worked with the Ulysses Ensemble, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Welsh National Opera, Opera North and Irish Film Orchestras. He has appeared regularly on radio and on television programmes, including RTE's The Symphony Sessions and Britain's The South Bank Show. He has a particular affinity to chamber music and has worked with many groups, including the Ysaye, the Navarra and the Vanbrugh Quartets. John Finucane is also a conductor of note, having studied with Janus Furst and Albert Rosen amongst others, and has regularly conducted the highly regarded RTE Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra and Opera Theatre Company. He was one of the founders of the Dublin Chamber Orchestra and has been the Musical Director of the Hibernian Orchestra for nearly thirty years. Despite his hugely busy life as a performing artist and conductor, John has found the time to join the faculty of the Royal Irish Academy of Music. His many tours have included China, as a soloist as well as with the National Chamber Ensemble of Ireland and Academy Chamber Ensemble performing to sell-out audiences. He is a D'Addario Woodwinds Performing Artist.

Elisaveta Blumina
Eminent pianist Elisaveta Blumina belongs to a generation of young musicians who put the music centre stage and do not pander to every demand by the music business. This has not gone unnoticed and has earned her an ECHO Klassik award, together with her trio “Ensemble Blumina”, (with Kalev Kuljus and Mathias Baier) for the best recording of chamber music composed in the 20th and 21st centuries.

As a child, pianist Elisaveta Blumina was a keen dancer and had a passion for the ballet. She had been accepted into the famous Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in St. Petersburg and was determined to become a ballerina. However, based on X-ray scans, doctors suggested to send her back to the music school for specially gifted children. Elisaveta Blumina has been among the first musicians to seriously study the work of the Polish-Jewish composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a close friend and contemporary of Shostakovich. Her project to record a series of CDs with Weinberg's music has established her as a major factor in the recent renaissance of Weinberg's music in the west. Her chamber music partners in this endeavour include clarinet player Wenzel Fuchs, cellist Johannes Moser and violinist Kolja Blacher. Invitations by Gidon Kremer to perform and teach Weinberg's music in the Lockenhaus festival and at the Kronberg Academy naturally followed. Currently Elisaveta Blumina is recording Weinberg's complete piano solo works. A total of 24 CD recordings covering a broad repertoire have been enthusiastically received by the specialised press and earned Elisaveta Blumina a reputation as an extraordinary musician.

Besides her performing career Elisaveta Blumina has assumed the role, since 2012, of artistic director of both the International Chamber Music Festival Hamburg and the festival "Giluim" Musica Judaica Salzland in Schoenebeck on the Elbe (Germany). She began her studies in her native St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Conservatoire Rimsky Korsakov. She continued her studies at the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg and later at the Conservatoire in Berne (among her teachers were Sir András Schiff, Evgeni Koroliov, Radu Lupu and Bruno Canino) Elisaveta‘s career to- date has taken her from the halls such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Laeisz hall in Hamburg to Carnegie Hall in New York.

Booklet for French Holidays