Jean Fournier Plays Beethoven

Jean Fournier (1911-2003) was a French violinist and professor of classical music. Fournier's intonation, while lean, was gentle on the ear. He made an impressive career for himself. He was a soloist with some of the great French orchestras as well as with celebrated international ones. Concert tours took him to many of Europe's centres of culture (Belgium, Germany, England, Italy, Ireland, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Spain), as well as to North and South Africa, India and the Far East. In addition to his solo work, Fournier was above all an excellent chamber musician. Together with his wife, the French pianist Ginette Doyen (1921-2002), he performed duets for violin and piano. In the 1950s he founded a brilliant piano trio together with the Italian cellist Antonio Janigro (1918-1989) and the Austrian pianist Paul Badura-Skoda (1927-2019). In addition to his active concert activities Jean Fournier also made many recordings. This 10-album compilation is testament to the violinist's diversity. It includes recordings such as the Sonatina No. 5 op. 32/1 for solo violin by Jean Martinon (1910-1976), and of course numerous duet works (many of them with his wife Ginette Doyen), piano trios (usually together with his trio partners Antonio Janigro and Paul Badura-Skoda) and violin concertos by Mozart or the Double Concerto op. 102 by Johannes Brahms with the Vienna State Opera Orchestra under Milan Horvat (Mozart) and Hermann Scherchen (Brahms).