À mon ami

The Chamber Music Cycle of Auditorio de Tenerife presents the concert À mon ami.Chopin and Franchomme, the twilight of the gods, with Camille Thomas and Julien Brocal.

"Je t'aime et voilà tout ce que je peux te dire car je tombe de sommeil et de faiblesse" ("I love you and that's all what I can tell because I'm falling from sleep and weakness"). The last letter Chopin wrote in his life was to Franchomme and those where his words...

At the twilight of his life Frederic Chopin composed his sonata for cello and piano and dedicated it to his dear friend cellist Auguste-Joseph Franchomme. This is the last work to be published during his lifetime.

The day before his death Chopin asked to hear it and Franchomme, at his bedside in a salon in the Place Vendôme, played the second and third movements ... Like the testament of a life that ends in full swing, each note of the sonata reflects the immense human and artistic friendship that binds the two men. Through music, transparent separation between their hearts and the heart of the world, they become immortal.

This eternity still vibrates today through Auguste Franchomme's instrument, a Stradivarius cello from 1730 today known under the name of Stradivarius Feuermann ... a mythical cello that I have had the immense honor to play for some years.

The very last letter of Chopin was addressed to Franchomme to whom he confided: "my favorite instrument is the cello". He will compose outside the piano almost only for this instrument and will even say that he finds no objection to his pieces for solo piano being transcribed for other instruments, as long as it is arranged with taste. Franchomme did not need to be asked and it is the work of these two men that I am happy to bring to life in this program.

Camille Thomas