Jean-Philippe Collard

Jean-Philip Collard piano world is definitely French. With great imagination and elegant virtuosity, he uses his wizardry to present the music of Chopin, Fauré and Ravel in colourful scenarios. Collard dismisses the prejudice that French music is light and superficial. His interpretations are a careful balance between gentle revelry and high drama. He also proves that the lyrical piano pieces of the so-called drawing-room composers Chopin and Fauré, should not be considered inferior to Schumann or Mendelssohn in terms of emotional depth. Collard has a particular affinity with the unique sound world of Fauré. One of the high points of Fauré's oeuvre is the Sixth Nocturne in D flat that goes deeper than a simple evocation of night. In this piece Fauré describes how during the night man is left in solitary silence and is confronted with his existential fears and dreams. This is music with huge emotional depths that symbolizes the broken romantic feel of the end of an era.