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Nightfall. It's that magical hour when day and night face each other and the sky descends into twilight. For a brief moment, light and darkness are in harmony and merge together.

I believe that we humans all carry certain elements of light and darkness within us. An awareness and affirmation of life, reality and conscience on the one hand, the shadow of greed and temptation on the other. The demand for things we can't have. And we don't always succeed in recognising or even defining the boundary between them.

This album is devoted to the music of three composers who lived, worked and died in Paris. Three contemporaries, sometimes friends, sometimes rivals. Though they could hardly have been more different, they were all part of an era and a movement that stood the world of art on its head and gave it a new definition and significance.

Claude Debussy composed Rêverie in 1890 while still in a phase of musical searching and development. Rêverie, with its repeated motifs and its lack of climaxes, has a somnolent, trance-like character that connects it with the world of Satie. It's also a marvellous, almost innocent way to begin this album.

Suite bergamasque arose in the same year. But Debussy reworked it over and over again before releasing it for publication in 1905. Inspired by baroque dance rhythms, the outer movements Prélude and Passepied, as well as Menuet, have a merry, sometimes festive character that poses a great contrast to Clair de lune.

Here Debussy set a like-named poem by Paul Verlaine in which the poet speaks of the happiness that masks his sorrow. This human dichotomy finds vivid expression in Debussy's setting.

Erik Satie's Gymnopédies (1888) and Gnossiennes (1890) are among the most popular works in the history of classical music. Satie was convinced that a composer has no right to claim his listeners' time. He developed his own notion of background music, which he called musique d'ameublement – "furniture music". Despite his minimalist style of composition, Satie was an extremely complex and cynical man. This is plain to see in his instructions to the player: instead of expression marks we find such turns of phrase as "Open your head", "Bury the sound" or "Create something hollow". The ambiguity of these phrases not only makes me rack my brain (they remind me of the lyrics of my favourite band, Pink Floyd), but sometimes cause me to doubt Satie's humble artistic persona.

Maurice Ravel, with his three-part Gaspard de la nuit of 1908, composed one of the greatest challenges in the piano repertoire. Goaded by the ambition to surpass Mily Balakirev's Islamey, then regarded as the most difficult piano piece ever written, he set three poems from Gaspard de la nuit, a volume of prose-poems by Aloysius Bertrand. By his own account, Bertrand received this volume from the Devil himself, who, disguised as an old man, met him in a park in Dijon. Ravel's setting is demanding in the extreme, both pianistically and emotionally. In Ondine, named for the water sprite who falls unhappily in love with a human being, we are confronted with our own fears of rejection and heartbreak. In Le Gibet, where the dead man's heartbeat echoes through the entire piece, we face the fear of loss and transience. And Scarbo, a gnome who attacks artists in the night and drinks their blood, confronts us with fear of failure. While Ravel was working on this piece his father suffered a stroke, and the act of creation was overshadowed by the ever-present dread of receiving news of his death. One month after completing his pianistic triptych, Ravel's father died of cerebral thrombosis.

At the end of the album is Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte, a little piece composed in 1899. I found it a fitting way to end this very complex and bleak album. Ravel himself described the piece as "an evocation of a pavane that a little princess might, in former times, have danced at the Spanish court". Whether this expresses a desire for eternal youth, or the dilemma of someone who cannot grow up, is a question I leave to the listener's imagination.

To me, this album is one of the most personal and challenging recordings I have ever made. This year marks the beginning of a new decade in my life, and my tenth year with Deutsche Grammophon. I wanted to assemble a programme that reflects my personal memories and experiences of the last ten years.

One month before I entered the recording studio – I was in the midst of the bleak world of Gaspard de la nuit – my father suffered a heart attack that he barely survived. Despite the fortunate outcome, these were terrifying hours and days in which I realised how close life and death are intertwined. But there can be no light without darkness, and no hope without fear. And sometimes the borders blur. As in Nightfall.

I dedicate this album to my family and all those who have accompanied and supported me in the 30 years of my life's brief journey.

Source: Alice Sara Ott (Translation: J. Bradford Robinson) (CD Booklet)

The merger of light and darkness purports to govern the programme choices for Alice Sara Ott's latest release, although her interpretations fall more into the shades of grey category. A dark and rather somnolent aura prevails in Debussy's Rêverie, in comparison to the 94-year-young Menahem Pressler's shapelier traversal released a few months ago on the same label (5/2018). By contrast, Ott's straightforward, line-orientated Suite bergamasque differs from the muted hues and subjectivity characterising label-mate Seong-Jin Cho's recent version (1/2018). Compare her relatively grounded "Menuet" movement to Cho's lighter, more capricious reading and you'll hear for yourself.

On the other hand, she underplays and tiptoes around "Clair de lune", unlike Jean-Yves Thibaudet's beautifully sung-out rendition (Decca, 7/2000). Her "Passepied" sounds relatively matter-of-fact and neutral when measured alongside Cho (again) and a faster, more interestingly inflected Alexis Weissenberg performance that's also on DG (7/1986). Ott's slow and rhetorical Satie Gnossienne No.1 sounds unctuous and self-aware next to Alexandre Tharaud's faster, more direct and comfortably idiomatic recording (Harmonia Mundi), although she treats the popular first Gymnopédie and the third Gnossienne simply and beautifully.

On to Ravel's increasingly ubiquitous Gaspard de la nuit. For all of Ott's attractive shadings and half tints in "Ondine", other pianists bring more consistent clarity to the main chordal ostinato pattern (Aimard, Berezovsky and, of course, Michelangeli). She stretches "Le gibet" out to a possibly record-breaking 9'20", as opposed to the normal five-to seven-minute range of motion. Amazingly enough, however, Ott's carefully calibrated nuances and balances and hypnotic sense of long line prove gripping on their own terms. The repeated notes in the introduction to "Scarbo" sound less foreboding and mysterious than mechanically hammered out, while the dotted rhythms are accurately executed yet lack the lightness, spring and propulsion one hears in the classic reference recordings of Pogorelich (DG, 6/1983) and François (EMI/Warner). An elegant, intimately scaled Ravel Pavane closes a recital that largely goes in one ear and out the other, save for Ott's extraordinary, not-to-be-missed slow-motion "Le gibet".

Source: Jed Distler (gramophone.co.uk)

The 2018-2019 season marks a significant year for German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott (b. 1988, Munich, Germany), one of the world's most in-demand classical pianists. She releases her latest album, Nightfall, featuring works by Satie, Debussy and Ravel, including Gaspard de la Nuit, one of the greatest challenges of piano literature. The album marks ten years since Alice has been signed as an exclusive recording artist to Deutsche Grammophon. She will tour the recital programme across the world, with European dates including Paris' La Seine Musicale, Stuttgart's Liederhalle, Vienna's Mozart Saal, Munich's Prinzregententheater, Baden Baden's Festspielhaus, London's Wigmore Hall and the Klavier-Festival Ruhr in Duisburg. These European dates are in addition to a nine-date recital tour across Japan, including Tokyo Opera City, in autumn 2018.

With her talent not limited to a global career as a high level performing artist, Alice Sara Ott also expresses her diverse creativity through a number of design and brand partnerships beyond the borders of classical music. She was personally requested to design a signature line of high-end leather bags for JOST, one of Germany's premium brands. Alice has also been global brand ambassador for Technics, the hi-fi audio brand of Panasonic Corporation, and she has an ongoing collaboration with the French luxury jewellery house, Chaumet.

A prominent figure on the international classical music scene, Alice Sara Ott regularly performs with the world's leading conductors and orchestras. In 2018-2019 as well as the international Nightfall recital tour, Alice will perform with NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo (Gianandrea Noseda), Philharmonia Orchestra (Santtu-Matias Rouvali), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic (Edward Gardner), London Symphony Orchestra (Elim Chan), St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (Yuri Temirkanov), and for a European tour with Gothenburg Symphony (Santtu-Matias Rouvali). She continues her collaboration with London Symphony Orchestra via her chamber music residency at LSO St Luke's, where she will give several Alice and Friends concerts with fellow artists including Ray Chen, Pablo Ferrández, Nemanja Radulovic, Alexey Stadler, Dimitri Ashkenazy and Francesco Tristano.

Alice Sara Ott has worked with conductors at the highest level including Lorin Maazel, Gustavo Dudamel, Pablo Heras-Casado, Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, Sir Antonio Pappano, Gianandrea Noseda, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Yuri Temirkanov, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä, Vasily Petrenko, Myung-Whun Chung, Hannu Lintu and Robin Ticciati. She continues to perform with ensembles such as Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Washington's National Symphony Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Wiener Symphoniker and Dresdner Philharmonie.

Source: alicesaraott.com

Photos by Ester Haase

More photos

See also

Alice Sara Ott – All the posts

Today HSH Prince Maximilian of Liechtenstein celebrates his fiftieth birthday. The prince was born on 16 May 1969 at St Gallen, Switzerland, and named Maximilian Nikolaus Maria; he is the second son of Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein (b.1945) and Countess Marie Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau (b.1940), who married in 1967. Maximilian followed elder brother Hereditary Prince Alois (b.1968) and was joined by two younger siblings, Prince Constantin (b.1972) and Princess Tatjana (b.1973).

Princes Constantin, Alois, and Maximilian of Liechtenstein in 1979

Prince Hans-Adam, Princess Marie, and their four children.

Maximilian attended the Gymnasium Grammar School at Vaduz. Afterwards, the prince studied at the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, and graduated from this institution in 1993. In 1998 Maximilian received an MBA from the Harvard Business School at Boston, Massachusetts.

In December 1999, the Princely Family announced the engagement between Prince Maximilian and Miss Angela Gisela Davis (b.Bocas del Toro, Panama 3 February 1958), the daughter of Javier Francisco Brown and Silvia Maritza Burke. At the time, Maximilian was working between London and Hamburg for a venture capital firm. A fashion designer, Angela studied at the Parsons School of Design, where she received the Oscar de la Renta Prize. For a time, she created her own line of clothes under the label "A. Davis"; she then went on to work as the design director for the Adrienne Vittadini fashion firm.

Prince Maximilian of Liechtenstein marries Angela Gisela Brown

(l to r) Hereditary Princess Sophie, Prince Constantin, Princess Angela and Prince Maximilian, Princess Tatjana, and Hereditary Prince Alois of Liechtenstein.

The couple were civilly married at Vaduz on 21 January 2000. This was followed by their religious wedding, which took place on 29 January in New York City at the Church of St. Vicente Ferrer: the bride designed the wedding gown herself. Princess Angela wore the Kinsky Honeysuckle Tiara. The marriage was historic in the sense that it brought the first person of Afro-Panamanian ancestry into one of the European reigning families.

Prince Maximilian and Princess Angela with their son Prince Alfonso

On 18 May 2001, Maximilian and Angela welcomed the arrival of their only child, Prince Alfons Constantin Maria, born at London. Alfons is currently sixth in the line of succession to the Liechtensteiner throne, after his father. Prince Alfons attended the Munich International School and is to graduate from Wellington College this year.

Since 2006, Prince Maximilian has worked as the CEO of the LGT Group (the Liechtenstein Global Trust). The LGT Group has over 2,000 employees around the world and locations on five continents.

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