PENTATONE releases Le temps des lilas, featuring I Giardini (Pauline Buet & David Violi), in February 2025.
An Ode To Romanticism And The French Chanson
Le temps des lilas is an ode to Romanticism, a love song and a nostalgic reflection on the bittersweet beauty of lost happiness. Dedicated to the music of Ernest Chausson, this album oscillates between passion and melancholy, wonder and nostalgia. The Concert Op. 21, a masterly work on the borderline between chamber music and orchestra, is carried by Pierre Fouchenneret’s magnetic violin and David Violi’s colorful piano. I Giardini also deliver a previously unpublished version of Poème Op. 25, reworked for violin, piano and string quartet. The album closes with Pauline Buet’s equally sensitive retelling of Chausson and Barbara’s ‘Temps des/du lilas’, using cello in the former and singing voice in the latter. Barbara’s song and Chausson’s melody stand as a simple, timeless tribute to the magic of past moments and the fragility of human existence.
Le temps des lilas is I Giardini’s first full-length album for PENTATONE, following an already rich discography: Nuits (which has been awarded the prestigious Diapason d’Or), Bleu, Shaw and Fauré, an EP released with PENTATONE in 2024.
““Driven by the romantic impetus, the cries of love and pain of Poème and Concert, we were keen to punctuate this programme with Le temps des lilas, based on a text by Maurice Bouchor. It’s about remembering times gone by, the happier days, the love that no longer exists. This is our chance to recount the poem without the words, to imagine the narration in music, to chisel the phrasing to create the illusion of words – and of course to end with the same story a few years later in 1962 with other words, real words, those of Barbara.” – Pauline & David (I Giardini)
Digital Release Date: 28 FEBRUARY 2025
Physical Release: FEBRUARY 2025
Released as a standard CD and in digital formats for streaming and high-resolution downloads
