After a comment from Piano Agitato in the French version of Recordings: a help or a hindrance to artistic creation?, I have been thinking about the records that have really affected me. Today, I have decided to make a selection of five of these. The choice was hard to make, but I have finally selected them from those I have listened to the most.

All these are equally important for me, which means I do not want to classify them. I have a special relationship to them because they made me discover or love something.

As I write these few lines, I’m listening to one of them: it is Joshua Bell, Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic interpreting the violin concertos of Sibelius and Goldmark. My first encounter with the concerto of Sibelius…

But “pianistically” speaking, there are two fundamental records I listened to a lot (and still do): one of them gave me the love of Maurice Ravel, it is Samson François, André Cluytens and l’Orchestre de la Société des Conservatoires interpreting both Ravel’s concertos, and in addition Gaspard de la Nuit by Samson. The other record, it’s still Samson François, but this time with Louis Frémiaux and l’Orchestre de l’Opéra de Monte-Carlo in both Chopin’s concertos. If I sometimes find other wonderful versions, I always end up returning to them: I love this free playing with no inhibitions!

There is in my selection, an album that introduced me to the string quartet and chamber music: Schumann’s string quartets by Via Nova Quartet. Just the wonderful hornpipes in the final movement of the a minor quartet are enough to justify my choice.

My last selection is still about piano, but Ivo Pogorelich’s one this time and this famous record: Chopin’s sonata in b flat minor, Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit and Prokofiev’s Sixth sonata. Thanks to him, I have realized that there could always be something new to find in a work.

And you, do you know these records? Did they touch you?