Released Albums
Serenade with a Dandelion
Violinists Varty Manouelian and Movses Pogossian continue their admirable advocacy for the work of Armenian composers with this extensive 4 disc collection of new works, a follow up to their Modulation Necklace release in 2020 (FCR244). Performed by various colleagues of Manouelian and Pogossian's and the UCLA based VEM Ensemble which is devoted to Armenian music, the album is divided into four volumes that focus on instrumental chamber music, art song, and solo piano music. Serenade with a Dandelion is an invaluable resource to explore 20th and 21st century Armenian repertoire, performed with the utmost sensitivity and commitment by Manouelian, Pogossian and their colleagues. Disc 2 features Armenian Art Songs with soprano Shoushik Barsoumian and pianist Steven Vanhauwaert.
Joseph Bologne:
3 sonatas for violin and fortepiano, opus 1b
Violinist Andrew McIntosh and fortepianist Steven Vanhauwaert collaborated on a historically important volume of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint Georges's Op. 1b sonatas on Olde Focus Recordings. Interest in Bologne's music has surged in recent years, exposing contemporary audiences to his refined catalogue. These works were published in 1781 during the height of his career, are in two movements each, and reflect Bologne's grounding in the elegant range of late 18th century aesthetics.
Chamber Works:
Éric Tanguy
CHAMBER WORKS OF ÉRIC TANGUY from Navona Records and composer Eric Tanguy delivers three world premiere recordings and a curated selection of the composer’s chamber pieces that demonstrates his illustrative style of punctuated modality.
Ambroise Aubrun violin
Cécilia Tsan cello
Steven Vanhauwaert piano
Martin Chalifour violin
Elissa Johnston soprano
Navona Records, 2022
Saint-Saens: L'Explorateur
This new release features works by the French master Saint-Saens: the Fantasy for harp, the Fantasy for harp and violin, 3 mazurkas and the Etude en Forme de Valse for solo piano, and the first Sonata and Elegy for violin and piano.
Kyunghee-Kim Sutre, harp
Guillaume Sutre, violin
Steven Vanhauwaert, piano
Sonarti Records, 2021
Ferruccio Busoni:
L'Enigme
The enigmatic Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni slipped somewhat between the cracks of music history. Although well-known for his brilliant piano transcriptions of master- pieces by other composers, his original works have eluded popularity in performance. The publication of his controversial essay, Sketch of a new aesthetic of music (1907), marks a turning point in his musical style. The Enigma highlights some of these later works, including the heroic Fantasia Contrappuntistica, two of the Elegies, the Fantasia Nach J.S. Bach, and the Indian Diary.
Editions Hortus 2020
Paris - Los Angeles
Austrian-American composer Eric Zeisl fled Vienna in 1938 and found refuge first in Paris before relocating to Los Angeles. This album depicts the friendship between Eric Zeisl and Darius Milhaud, their exile to California and their mutual admiration for each other’s work, and revisits Mozart’s sonata in E minor which fascinated Zeisl.
Ambroise Aubrun, violin
Steven Vanhauwaert, piano
Hortus Records, 2020
Tigran Mansurian
Con Anima
Conceived jointly by violinist Movses Pogossian and violist Kim Kashkashian on the occasion of Tigran Mansurian’s 80th birthday, the Con animaproject brings together a dedicated cast of players to perform the Armenian composer’s chamber music. The emphasis is on newer pieces - only the Third String Quartet dates from the 20th century - but there is a timeless quality to Mansurian’s work, all of which resounds with the spirit of his homeland. Sonata da Chiesa is dedicated to the memory of priest-composer-folklorist Komitas, an enduring inspiration for Mansurian. Agnus Dei is influenced by Armenian sacred music, and Die Tänzerin is based upon an Armenian folk dance.
Dispersion
Dispersion, features Erwin Schulhoff’s 5 Grotesken, Louis Vierne’s Le Glas, Paul Hindemith’s In Einer Nacht, Alfredo Casella’s Inezie, and the world premiere recording of the Belgian Raymond Moulaert’s Piano Sonata. It was released in May 2016 by Editions Hortus as part of their W.W.I. memorial series Les Musiciens et la Grande Guerre.
Romance de Guerre
As the long months of the Great War wore on, society clung to its former codes, to habits belonging to prewar times. Many composers, whether far removed from the conflict like Elgar or wallowing in the mud of the trenches like Philippe Gaubert, were convinced that the sonata, which for over a century had been playing on the salons’ heartstrings, was not about to die. If the Elgar sonata is well-known, the works of Philippe Gaubert and all the more those of Blair Fairchild, unfairly forgotten, deserve a revival.
Sonarti Records – Joseph Woelfl: The Paris Years
A new album with works by Joseph Woelfl on Sonarti Records. It features Woelfl’s harp/piano sonata opus 29, as well as the violin/piano sonatas opus 14 and 31, and the piano sonata opus 38. 5 Diapasons
Pensées Intimes features the massive Sonata for Piano and Violin in E mind opus 27 by Hans Pfitzner, the lyric sonata for violin and piano opus 3 by the Belgian Georges Antoine, a short Nocturne by the French Lili Boulanger, and the World Premiere recording of Frederick Septimus Kelly’s Violin Sonata, written during his time in Gallipoli for there legendary violinist Jelly d’Aranyi. It was awarded 5 Diapasons in France.
Guillaume Sutre, violin
Steven Vanhauwaert, piano
Pensées Intimes
Awake and Dream
Works by Lior Rosner on Bridge Records, featuring the Hollywood Studio Orchestra, Katia Popov, Lior Rosner, Janai Brugger, and Steven Vanhauwaert
Petrushka
In this follow-up disc to the Paris 1913 album, 4handsLA recorded Stravinsky’s iconic Petrushka, along with Casella’s Puppazetti, which is also centered around the idea of puppets.
Paris 1913
A riveting new recording of the piano four-hands version of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and works by Ravel, Poulenc, and Satie.
Debut Album
Works by Liszt, Schumann, Schubert, Debussy and Chopin.