The Russian musician of French descent, Grigory L'vovitch Catoire (1861-1926) is little known outside his country. However, this composer who was passionate about the French and German music of his time left to posterity a deeply touching work. Completed in 1921, his Quintet in G minor is considered his testamentary score. It expresses with passionate tenderness, the twilight of a romanticism that draws on Slavic as well as French and Germanic aesthetics.

Born in Nagoya in Japan, Etsuko Hirose began studying the piano at the age of three. When she was six she performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto no.26 with an orchestra. After pursuing her studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Bruno Rigutto and Nicholas Angelich, she has received the guidance of Alfred Brendel, Marie-Francoise Bucquet and Jorge Chamine.