THE UNRELEASED SWISS RECORDINGS

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RECORD 1

Schumann: Papillons, Op. 2

Mendelssohn: Songs without Words in B Minor, Op. 67, No. 5

Mendelssohn: Songs without Words in A Major, Op. 62, No. 6

Alabyev/Liszt: The Nightingale, S. 250*

Liszt: Sonetto 123 del Petrarca, S. 161, No. 6

Liszt: Valse-Impromptu, S.213

Liszt: Transcendental Étude No. 8 "Wilde Jagd", S. 139*

Liszt: Transcendental Étude No. 7 "Eroica", S. 139*

RECORD 2

Liszt: Piano Concerto in E-flat Major, No. 1, S. 124**

Allegro maestoso

Quasi Adagio
Allegretto Vivace
Allegro marziale animato

Chopin: Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2***

Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody in D-flat Major, S. 244, No. 6

Chopin: Nocturne in G Minor, Op. 15, No. 3*

Chopin: Étude in G-flat Major, Op. 10, No. 5*

Chopin: Étude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12*

Chopin: Grande valse brillante in E-flat Major, Op. 18*

Magnetic Samson François

François is in the lineage of Sofronitzky, Horowitz and Cortot. In fact, Cortot said of him, “I can only get him to play by evoking images.” We find such fascinatingly colourful images in each of these previously unpublished recordings made in various places in Switzerland; they make up a programme entirely devoted to François’s beloved world, that of romantic music.

No sooner do we hear the first notes of Schumann’s Papillons, recorded in the RTS studios in Geneva in 1961, than we understand why François’s flowing interpretation achieves a synthesis between two theories of music: that of Jean-Philippe Rameau, who saw in music only rhythm and order, and that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for whom music was the purest expression of feeling. François draws out the concentrated essences of the piece, giving us a particularly mesmerising interpretation of the youthful Schumann’s work inspired by a masked ball.

The next pieces, Mendelssohn’s two Songs without Words, were recorded at the same time and are made of the same stuff. After succumbing to the hypnotic effect of the pianist’s sound with its unfathomable subtlety – the delicately chiselled accompanying delivery, perfect legato and superbly elegant rubato over an ideal beat – one can only wonder if there are any more spellbinding renderings of these miniatures than these.

François’s hands flow over his keyboard and over the music. “I should have liked to make a pact with the devil, but he wouldn’t have me,” he is quoted as saying, according to an article in Diapason magazine published in 2020. François was excessive, unpredictable, a charmer, vulnerable – in a nutshell, he was magnetic, a quality revealed by the discovery of these recordings that are a tribute to one of the greatest pianistic poets of the twentieth century.

Samson François, Piano
**Edmond Appia, Conductor
**Orchestra of French-speaking Switzerland

Recorded on 31.I.1961 at the RTS Studio, Geneva
* Recorded on the ?.?.1949 at the RTS Studio, Geneva
** Recorded on 28.III.1962, unknown place
*** Date and place unknown

Ref: TLR-2403052
Photo: 1959 © ClaudePoirier/Roger-Viollet
1st double UHQCD edition
Printed in Europe

MONO ℗ 1949, 1961, 1962 RTS
Remastered by ℗ & © 2024 THE LOST RECORDINGS from the original analog tapes

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DOUBLE UHQCD

SAMSON FRANÇOIS

THE UNRELEASED SWISS RECORDINGS

The story of this discovery

"We are following the trail of these recordings thanks to one of our clients. A private collector reportedly holds unpublished recordings made in Switzerland, of the great Samson François on analogue tapes. After weeks of discussion, this person finally agrees to send us the two tapes in question. These are studio and live recordings of Samson's performances in Switzerland. We choose our MCI tape recorder to play them. I am literally overwhelmed by what I hear and I start listening to the Butterflies, the Romances without. lyrics, Liszt's Etudes... I have never heard these works played like this. Every phrasing, every intonation and every color hypnotizes me. The recordings revealed very different eras and some pieces were not recorded originally on magnetic tapes but using direct-cut matrix and then transferred to these tapes in the early 1960s. It took us a lot of effort to identify the dates and locations of these recordings and we spent an infinite amount of time to restore and thus immortalize this absolute musical treasure".

Frédéric D'ORIA-NICOLAS
Musical treasure seeker

Le Journal du Dimanche

“The restorations of The Lost Recordings are worthy of those devoted to master paintings”

“I would have liked to make a pact with the devil, but he didn’t want me”