Three Visions of the Sacred: a stellar cast (Claire-Marie Le Guay, Marie-Josèphe Jude, Michel Béroff, and Tanguy de Williencourt) for an evening dedicated to the sacred.

The spirit of the sacred isn't confined to religious music per se, and this three-part program offers examples rooted in different eras. Claire-Marie Le Guay opens the program with Bach, "our father to us all" (Debussy): his secular music also bears the mark of the sense of the sacred that inspired him—he even signed his manuscripts not with his initials, but SDG: soli Deo gloria (To God alone, glory). Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen, an immense spiritual meditation full of expressive contrasts, is performed by the duo of Michel Béroff (winner of the first Messiaen Competition in 1967 and a connoisseur of the composer's music) and Marie-Josèphe Jude. Finally, Tanguy de Williencourt, who belongs to the generation of pianists born in the 1990s, offers a journey into the world of Liszt, a composer also deeply marked by a sense of the sacred, to whom he dedicated a notable album in 2024.

Programme:

7:30 p.m.: Claire-Marie Le Guay, piano

"Its expressive force moves me, as does the dialogue with the orchestra, the power that emanates from the work." - Ouest France.

Bach: Prelude No. 1, BWV 846
Bach: Chromatic Fantasy, BWV 903
Marcello / Bach: Oboe Concerto in D minor, BWV 974 – II. Adagio
Bach: English Suite No. 6 in D minor, BWV 811 – IV. Sarabande
Bach: Prelude No. 2, BWV 847
Bach: Partita No. 1 in B-flat major, BWV 825 – I. Prelude, IV. Sarabande, V. Menuet, VII. Gigue
Vivaldi / Bach: Concerto in G major, BWV 973 – II. Largo
Bach: Fantasy-Prelude in A minor, BWV 922
Bach: Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828 – V. Sarabande
Bach / Busoni: Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639
Bach: Italian Concerto in F major, BWV 971

9:30 PM: Marie-Josèphe Jude, piano - Michel Béroff, piano

"This sophisticated, fluid, frank, loyal, disciplined, and passionate piano playing relies sometimes on the tightness of the rhythm, sometimes on the length of the phrasing, according to the demands of the music. Captivating throughout." - Diapason (2025)

Messiaen: Visions of the Amen

11 p.m.: Tanguy de Williencourt, piano

"Tanguy de Williencourt's approach is at once simple, full of naturalness, and immensely refined." Classica (2022)

Liszt: Harmonies du Soir, S. 139 No. 11
Liszt: Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude
Liszt: Funérailles
Liszt: Vallée d'Obermann
Liszt: Cantique d'amour