Over to the Alsace region of France for a concert from the 2010 Colmar Chamber Music Festival (Les Musicales de Colmar), featuring the Atrium Quartet, assisted by a star-studded cast of friends (see list below). Since the theme of this festival was Music from The Viennese School, this concert is devoted to music of Schubert, Gustav Mahler (as arranged by his friend Arnold Schoenberg) and Arnold Schoenberg. The concert was recorded by Radio France on May 13th of 2010. As always, the concerts presented by Radio France are wonderful, not only for the repertoire but the great job the recording team do. A little over an hour, it's a rather short concert so it all fits on one player.

The list of pieces and the extensive list of players is posted below:

Les Musicales de Colmar : Schubert, Mahler, Schoenberg

Franz Schubert
Quatuor N°12 en Ut mineur D.703 (1820)*

Gustav Mahler & Arnold Schoenberg, Transcription
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1884,1896) **

Arnold Schoenberg
La nuit transfigurée Op.4 (1899) ***

Quatuor Atrium*

Clémentine Margaine, Soprano**
Sébastian Jacot, Flute**
Romain Guyot, Clarinette**
Stephan Fougeroux, Percussions**
Alexander Melnikov, Piano**
Jeremy Menuhin, Piano**
Ilya Gringolts, Violon ** ***
Hagai Shaham, Violon**
Maxim Rysanov, alto** ***
Marc Coppey, Violoncelle ** ***
Niek De Groot, Contrebasse**
Liana Gourdjia, Violon***
Sylvia Simionescu, Alto***
Antonio Meneses, Violoncelle***
Concert donné le 13 mai 2010 au Théâtre Municipal de Colmar dans le cadre du Festival de Musique de Chambre.

Since it is Wednesday (in case you forgot, since Monday was a holiday), it's your weekly dose of Anti-Road Rage. A great concert with a pretty spectacular batch of folks. So calming down is a given.

Enjoy.

(Philippe Cassard - nice observations of Brahms and Schumann)

To Paris this week for a recital by French Pianist Philippe Cassard, recorded live at the Theatre de l'Athenee this past March 30. Mostly Schumann and Brahms with two works by Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg. The concert is complete and broken up into two parts with Part one above and Part two below. Here's what's on the program:

Théâtre de l'Athénée : Récital Philippe Cassard, piano

Concert donné le 30 mars 2010 au Théâtre de l'Athénée à Paris

Part 1: Johannes Brahms

Intermezzi Op.117

Robert Schumann

Fantaisie en Ut majeur Op.17

Part 2: Johannes Brahms

6 Intermezzi Op.118

Anton Webern

Variations Op.27

Arnold Schoenberg

3 Pièces Op.11

Johannes Brahms

Rapsodie en Sol mineur Op.79 N°2

Robert Schumann

Scènes d'enfants Op.15 N°1

I think I can confidently say this concert won't jack up your blood pressure. Since it's recorded live by Radio France Musique, the announcements are all in French. But I've edited them down so you don't have to go crazy with a French-English dictionary.