16 Portraits: Michel-Georges Brégent
Released: 2005
Label: Centrediscs/Centredisques
Order No: CMCCD 10805

Christina Petrowska Quilico, piano

In this first complete performance of Michel-Georges Brégent's 16 Portraits, pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico wanted the listener to experience the intimacy, passion and raw emotion of the music as if reading a secret diary, with the electrifying immediacy that only a live performance can give. Click here for a short bio of Michel-George Brégent.

Tracks
CD 1: 1-9. Portraits, Études Romantiques pour piano
CD 2: 10-16. Portraits, Études Romantiques pour piano

Reviews of 16 Portraits: Michel-Georges Brégent

«Une véritable révélation! J’ai parcouru ces 16 portraits sous les doigts de Christina Petrowska Quilico comme on tourne les pages d’un journal intime: avec respect et avec émotion. Et quand c’est fini, on a le goût de recommencer.» - SRC "Espace Musique"

"In addition to being a prolific composer, Canadian composer Michel-Georges Brégent (1948-1993) was also gifted as a performer and writer of rock music. His 16 Portraits are intensely romantic pieces. In his notes from the manuscript score Bregent says, “ I am a Romantic. These 16 Portraits for piano draw or depict states of being, illustrate social situations, professions and occupations. They are a logical continuation of the repertoire of the transcendental etudes of Liszt and Liapunov. the etudes of Chopin, Scriabin and the etudes-tableaux of Rachmaninoff.” Performed here with great sensitivity by his former wife, the 16 Portraits are a welcome addition to the repertoire. While they clearly owe a debt to Rachmaninoff, Bregent was an original voice who died too young." - Sequenza21

"The most striking thing about these sixteen piano pieces, aside from the skill with which Quilico performs them, is how Romantic they seem ... Bregent's music is full of fire, but it's melodic and almost traditional in a way that most modern composers' work is not. Whether this marks Bregent as some sort of compositional reactionary, or simply as a composer who wasn't afraid to look to the greatest of his forebears for inspiration, is a question we can leave to the classical music cognoscenti; everyone else should simply know that 16 Portraits is an excellent performance of some highly listenable and intriguing work." - Splendid Magazine

16 Portraits: Michel-Georges Brégent is available through the Canadian Music Centre CD Boutique at www.musiccentre.ca. If you enjoyed this recording, you may also like Gems with an Edge. Download and listen to an MP3 file of Geste by Michel-George Brégent from Gems with an Edge.