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Katia & Marielle Labèque

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Biography

Born in Bayonne, France in on March 11,1950 and March 6, 1952, respectively, classical piano playing sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque began their career together in 1970, recording Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen under the composer's direction. Both together and separately, their recitals and recordings met with great success. In 1980, their album Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - Piano Concerto in F went gold. The Labèque sisters were very prolific from this period to the end of the 1990s. Recorded with a host of rock stars, the album Carnaval (1997) was their last before a ten-year hiatus during which they took on different activities. Married to conductor Semyon Bychkov, Marielle Labèque reunited with her sister in 2005 to set up a foundation in Rome, a recording studio and the KML Recordings label, which in 2012 released the anthology Minimalist Dream House, dedicated to fifty years of minimalist music. Katia and Marielle Labèque's repertoire was vast, ranging from the classical and romantic periods to contemporary composers. Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, Philippe Boesmans and Michael Nyman have each composed one of their works for them. In 2015, they premiered on stage David Chalmin's composition Star Cross'd Lovers, which they coupled with Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story for the album Love Stories (2017). Two years later, Dessner: El Chan included the composer’s title piece, as well as his Concerto for Two Pianos, conducted by Matthias Pintscher. The sisters then worked with Philip Glass on piano transcriptions of the three operas based on Jean Cocteau's plays, Orphée, La Belle et la Bête and Les Enfants Terribles, collected in the box set Glass: Cocteau Trilogy (2024), which ranked among the best-selling classical music albums in France (number 11) and the UK (number 4).
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Albums


Top Tracks

  1.   Track
    Popularity
  2.   Stravinsky: 5 Easy Pieces for Piano Duet: 4. Napolitana
  3.   Stravinsky: 5 Easy Pieces for Piano Duet: 3. Balalaïka
  4.   Scaramouche, Suite for 2 Pianos: 3. Brazileira (Mouvement de samba)
  5.   Stravinsky: 5 Easy Pieces for Piano Duet: 2. Española
  6.   Stravinsky: 5 Easy Pieces for Piano Duet: 1. Andante
  7.   Capriccio (d'après le Bal Masqué) for 2 Pianos: Capriccio (d'après le Bal Masqué) for 2 Pianos
  8.   Sonata for Piano 4 Hands: 3. Final (Très vite)
  9.   Sonata for Piano 4 Hands: 2. Rustique (Naïf et lent)
  10.   Sonata for Piano 4 Hands: 1. Prélude (Modéré)
  11.   Scaramouche, Suite for 2 Pianos: 2. Modéré
  12.   Scaramouche, Suite for 2 Pianos: 1. Vif
  13.   Elégie (en accords alternés) for 2 Pianos: Elégie (en accords alternés) for 2 Pianos
  14.   L'embarquement pour Cythère, valse-musette for 2 Pianos: L'embarquement pour Cythère, valse-musette
  15.   Chalmin: Star-Cross'd Lovers - Act II: Mariage by David Chalmin
  16.   Chalmin: Star-Cross'd Lovers - Act II: Capulet's Orchard by David Chalmin
  17.   Stravinsky: Three Easy Pieces (for Piano Four-Hands): II. Waltz
  18.   Satie: Trois morceaux en forme de poire: No.2 - Enlevé
  19.   Satie: Trois morceaux en forme de poire: No.1 - Lentement
  20.   Chalmin: Star-Cross'd Lovers - Act I: Street Fight by David Chalmin
  21.   Gershwin: Three Preludes for Piano (1926) - Arr. for Piano Duet: II. Andante con moto e poco rubato, in C sharp minor
  22.   Chalmin: Star-Cross'd Lovers - Act I: Two Foes by David Chalmin
  23.   Satie: Trois morceaux en forme de poire: No.3 - Brutal
  24.   Stravinsky: 5 Easy Pieces for Piano Duet: 5. Galop
  25.   Chalmin: Star-Cross'd Lovers - Act I: The Party by David Chalmin
  26. See All Songs

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