Warner Classics laat de Frans-Zwitserse violiste en(!) celliste Camille Berthollet (1999) hier haar CD-debuut maken met een wel heel gevarieerd programma met muziek van onder meer Vivaldi, Piazolla, John Williams en Fauré. Ze wordt afwisselend begeleid door piano of orkest al dan niet samenspelend met violiste en oudere zus Julie. Na een qua tempo nogal oververhitte opening met een deel van de "Zomer" uit Vivaldi's Vier Jaargetijden, blijkt dat haar spel en ontspannen gevoel voor ritme uiteindelijk het best tot zijn recht komt in de stukken voor kleine bezetting (viool en piano of cello en piano enz.). Dat dit viool- en cello-meisje kan spelen, staat wel vast.
Camille Berthollet: Prodiges
Bach, J S: Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, BWV1043
Brahms:Hungarian Dance No. 1 in G minor
Fauré: Après un rêve, Op. 7 No. 1
Frolov: Scherzo-Souvenir
Gardel: Por Una Cabeza
Halvorsen: Passacaglia for Violin & Cello/Viola (after Handel)
On 27 December 2014, in front of a televised audience of 4.5 million viewers – and without even a hint of stage fright – a flame-haired 15-year-old violinist was crowned winner of the first-ever Prodiges (Prodigies) competition for young musicians and dancers, produced by Shine France and aired on France 2.
Camille Berthollet astonished judges including star cellist Gautier Capuçon with an electrifying ‘Presto’ from the Summer concerto of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. “You can sense in her such a passion, she is really inside the music… She is so young but she already has this internal spark and this energy,” he said of his protégée.
But Camille is not your standard child prodigy. Born in 1999, she asked her parents for cello lessons at the age of three – violin followed five years later and she quickly excelled as a virtuoso on both instruments, studying in Geneva, Lyon and at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. She has already performed on Stradivarius and del Gesù violins in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Even before she shot to stardom on Prodiges (Prodigies), she was no stranger to prestigious international competitions, in 2010, 2012 and 2014 winning the First Prize of the Swiss Youth Competition for Music, as well as the First Prize of the 2012 Popper Competition in Paris and Second Prize in the Mary Smart international competition in New York (under-sixteens category), among others.
Soon after the show aired, Camille signed to Warner Classics as an exclusive artist, recording her debut album, Prodiges (Prodigies), for release in October 2015. “The contest hasn’t changed my life, but it has opened wonderful doors to me, the most marvelous one being sought out by the president of Warner Classics, Alain Lanceron,” she recalls. “They suggested I record my first album and that I could choose the programme freely.”
What sets Camille apart from many other gifted Wunderkinder may be her idyllic upbringing in the Rhône-Alpes region of Annecy – surrounded not only by music, but also by familial support rather than pressure, growing up playing in duet with her older violinist sister Julie, now 18.
“I’m lucky to have my sister Julie always close to me. We learn a great deal from one another, she’s a wonderful violinist and I can always lean on her. So naturally, I wanted to make this album with her! I also had the great fortune to record with Gautier Capuçon.”
The Prodiges (Prodigies) album is a broad-ranging collection of virtuoso miniatures for duet and dazzling solo works with the Auvergne Orchestra. The programme includes movements from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with which Camille ignited the stage live on France 2 TV, Bach’s Double Concerto, Sarasate’s Navarra, Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No.1, the searing theme from Schindler’s List, and a personal favourite of Camille’s: Edith Piaf’s La Vie en Rose. Gautier Capuçon joins Camille in Piazzolla’s soulful Oblivion.
“To record this album at 16 years of age is an out-of-the-ordinary experience that I had only dreamed of,” she enthuses.
