Bertrand Boissard’s report in Diapason is not a routine anniversary notice. It reads like a family chronicle of chamber music: for thirty years, Yves Petit de Voize’s Easter Festival in Deauville has been a laboratory where the « fine flower » of instrumentalists tests repertoire — often before the wider public knows their names. Renaud Capuçon, Bertrand Chamayou, Adam Laloum, the Ébène Quartet, Nicholas Angelich: the list of alumni reads like a map of today’s French scene.
The 30th edition paired French and Czech programmes across two nights. Our attention goes to the second evening, « Mitteleuropa »: Janáček, Martinů, Dvořák — and Jonas Vitaud at the centre.
He opens with Janáček’s Sonata « 1.X.1905 », written after the violent suppression of a Brno demonstration. Boissard notes a few minute slips in the opening Con moto, quickly swept away on repetition; what remains is « density and contained power », and in the second panel an interpretation « that does not fear to contemplate the abysses » — with « superb nuances, so tenuous and yet so vibrant ».
Then comes the summit: Martinů’s Piano Quintet No. 2 — « as elusive as it is inventive, ardent and playful », including an episode that « seems to announce American minimalism ». With Omer Bouchez and David Moreau (violins), Manuel Vioque-Judde (viola), Caroline Sypniewski (cello) and Vitaud at the piano, the ensemble « triumphs » in a score that « could have been written yesterday » for how freely it plays with schools and styles.
The concert closes with Dvořák’s Serenade — eleven musicians « as if freed from all constraint » — leaving the hall smiling after a night begun « in unrelieved darkness ». Diapason’s verdict: « Vivement la 31e édition ! »
For Syros, this review matters because it confirms what the festival programmes every year: Vitaud is not only a curator of ideas, but a chamber player of international calibre — precise in attack, generous in colour, and fully present in the dialogue of the quintet.
