AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE

Au clair de la lune
Flemish Romantic piano music

The industrialisation and spread of the piano — there were already more than a hundred piano manufacturers in Belgium before 1850 — allied with the success of piano tuition at the newly founded conservatories and music schools and cheaper printing processes all ensured that piano scores rolled off the presses at an ever-increasing rate during the 19th century. This Romantic repertoire was aimed not only at the virtuoso but also at the amateur who made music in the intimacy of his drawing room. We here present an anthology of this music, including virtuoso works as well as salon pieces, most of which are recorded here for the first time.

Naruhiko Kawaguchi – pianoforte
Naruhiko Kawaguchi was born in Morioka, the capital of Iwate prefecture, and grew up in Yokohama, Japan. He has won prizes at several competitions, including the 1st International Chopin Competition for period instruments, the International Competition Musica Antiqua Bruges, and the 1st Rome Fortepiano International Competition (Premio Muzio Clementi ). He has performed in the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the ‘Chopin and his Europe’ Festival (Warsaw), the Monteverdi Festival (Cremona), the Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, the Goldberg Festival Gdansk, and the Nohant Festival of Chopin, among others. He has appeared as concerto soloist with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, and the Orkiestra Historyczna. He graduated summa cum laude with a master’s degree in Early Music from Tokyo University of the Arts and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. He studied fortepiano with Kikuko Ogura and Richard Egarr, and clavichord with Menno van Delft.