Ensemble Contraste

Eugène Anthiome

Ambroisine Bré, mezzo-soprano 
Arnaud Thorette, violin 
Antoine Pierlot, cello
Johan Farjot, piano

Eugène Anthiome is that kind of romantic and romantic artist who could easily go unnoticed if his integrity and his talent had not saved him from oblivion despite himself. Because this virtuoso pianist, born in 1836 in Lorient, seems to have programmed himself his ever more radical flight from career worldliness, despite noted Parisian beginnings and a solid recognition of the institution.

Haloed by a Second Grand Prix of Rome which completes an already brilliant track record, young piano teacher at the Superior Conservatory of Music (who saw a certain Maurice Ravel pass on his seat), why Eugène Anthiome, prolix and promising composer, didn’t Did he not know how to capitalize on the interest of prestigious cinemas which were not reluctant to program it?

It was without counting on a happy coincidence that put on the path of Michel Léger, amateur and passionate support of music, a large batch of handwritten scores by Eugène Anthiome, in the attic of his Breton house. And the enthusiasm of Ensemble Contraste to remove these jewels from their discreet dust.

These meetings are at the origin of an astonishing disc, uniting pieces of chamber and vocal music, born from the pen of a composer who obstinately blackened entire pages of his original paw without destining them for posterity, before let death pluck it, stifled by the hubbub of the Great War, in 1916. Pieces of very varied invoice make up this recording, such as this "Grand Trio" for piano, violin and cello, whose classical architecture pays homage to great masters, without at any time preventing the moving breath of a musician unique in his century.