Marielle Labèque performs Grażyna Bacewicz’s Ten Concert Etudes: IV in this week’s featured video, taken from 55, the new retrospective album celebrating 55 years since the Labèque sisters’ recording debut.
Fifty-five years after releasing their first recording under the guidance of Olivier Messiaen, Katia and Marielle Labèque celebrate an extraordinary artistic journey with 55, a three-CD boxed set bringing together 25 new recordings with carefully selected archive performances spanning the years 1970 to 2024.
This week’s featured video presents Marielle Labèque performing Grażyna Bacewicz’s Ten Concert Etudes: IV, one of the newly recorded works included on the album’s first disc. Composed in 1956, the Ten Concert Etudes rank among the Polish composer’s most significant piano works. Bacewicz instructed the first performer of the fourth étude to play it “faster and not espressivo,” aiming to create the impression of continuous “flying notes” across the keyboard.
A recurring thread throughout 55 is its celebration of women composers. Twelve of the album’s 55 tracks are devoted to works by eight composers, including Bacewicz, Margaret Bonds, Dora Pejačević, Fanny Mendelssohn, Lili Boulanger, Marie Jaëll, Hélène de Montgeroult and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. The boxed set also includes photographs by Brigitte Lacombe and a richly illustrated booklet featuring an essay by musicologist and journalist Renaud Machard, historical context and composer quotations.
Listen to the complete album:
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