Reviews and occasional notes on classical music "Music, both vocall and instrumental, so good, so delectable, so rare, so admirable, so super excellent, that it did even ravish and stupifie all those strangers that never heard the like." - Thomas Coryat, after hearing 3 hours of music at the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice, 1608.
The Complete Beethoven Sonatas for Violin & Piano; Sonatas by Fauré, Franck & Debussy Here are more classic Beethoven recordings to lead us into the Big Beethoven Year of 2020, the 250th Anniversary of his birthday, on December 17, 1770. The Beethoven sonatas are studio recordings from 1958 and 1961, and it would be hard to find a better-matched duo for this repertoire. When Zino Francescatti and Robert Casadesus swap the lead and support roles at the beginning of the Spring Sonata, op. 24, you're hearing a marvellous musical partnership unfold.
The keynote here is freshness. Though the temperature is rather low, as likely to be measured as fiery, the two musicians always sound spontaneous, and even, when the music allows, joyous. I was always convinced by their decisions, and swept along by the music. And what lovely music this is! Perhaps the violin sonatas aren't as serious and profound as the string quartet cycle, but my goodness, there are so many felicities in melody and rhythm, and such inventive conversations between the instruments. When you have two such impressive musicians as Francescatti and Casadesus, so intelligent, so sensitive, so lively, you can be sure you're hearing this music as the composer intended.
The three Beethoven CDs sound exceptional, as one would expect, since Holger Siedler, who did the remastering, had fine source tapes to work with. The fourth disc is much more of a mixed bag, sound-wise, though the music and the performances are wonderful. These sonatas by Fauré, Franck and Debussy are live recordings from 1947 to 1956. The bonus disc is much more than just an encore; it makes a perfect album even more impressive!
Under the alternating fires of two spotlights, a very young man, with troubled eyes and flaming hair, was seated before the black mass of a piano. And, alone, confronting a considerable public, delirious or collected, and who filled the vast ship of the room of the Opera of the Champs-Elysees.
This spectacle still besets my memory.
- Henry Malherbe
The very young man was Marius-Francois Gaillard, and he was in the midst of playing the complete piano works of Claude Debussy, spread over three concerts in March 1922. In 1928, 1929 and 1930, French Odéon recorded a significant subset of Gaillard's Debussy, enough to fill a generous CD, and spill over onto a second. This is outstanding playing; though the sound is of course thin and restricted, there is a full palette of tonal colour. Gaillard supplies fire, wit and just a touch of swing, rare in a Debussy performance from any period, but a revelation if you haven't heard this marvellous music played in such a way. This is a recording to listen to while reading Proust, and drinking vintage French champagne, preferably the 1985 Krug Brut, if you have any left in your cellar.
APR Recordings fills the second CD with more marvellous piano playing from the 1930s, by Carmen Guilbert. Recorded by Pathé well after the Gaillard, the sound isn't as life-like, but her playing of Debussy, Faure and Ravel still communicates musicality and authenticity through the hiss and cramped acoustic. Such a fine release!
Back in October 2016 I reviewed the debut Chandos disc from the Neave Trio, American Moments, and loved pretty much everything about it, though I did quibble a bit about the title. These are such talented musicians, and they've put together another fascinating CD program, but at a significantly higher musical level. And this time around the title is just right.
As with the first disc, there's an early work to begin: Albert Roussel's Piano Trio was only his second published work, but it's definitely assured and well-crafted. It may not have the swagger of the child prodigy Erich Wolfgang Korngold's op. 1 Trio, but its opening slow introduction is really quite extraordinary, a slow climb up a mountain through a misty forest. The rest of the work doesn't quite match this atmospheric beginning, but it gets a committed reading from the Trio. Roussel took his time becoming a composer; he was 33 when his op. 2 was published, so you can imagine him as Robert Redford the Rookie in The Natural. Claude Debussy's first Piano Trio is an actual work of juvenilia, though, as he was only 18 when he wrote it. It's rather slight and a bit slick, but it's certainly fun to listen to, and this version has just the right blend of naiveté and prescient irony.
Just like with their first disc, there's a very fine mature work to finish. Gabriel Faure's op. 120 was written only a year before his death, and during a period when he was not in very good health. But it has the reconciliation and serenity that Edward Said calls the "accepted notion" of late style, citing Sophocles, Shakespeare and Verdi. This is powerful, moving music, played with great sentiment but also grace and finesse.
It's great to see a new Chandos series of piano music of Gabriel Fauré, played by Louis Lortie. This first disc in the series, to be released September 30, 2016, is organized as a recital, and a well-planned one it is. It includes a couple of the Nocturnes, three Barcarolles, the 9 Preludes op. 109, the Pelleas and Melisande suite, and two arrangements of beloved songs. Not many other composers could compare with Fauré for the surprising or subtle differences in mood and the different colours, harmonies and rhythms on display in an hour of short piano pieces.
In preparing the orchestral suite from Pelleas and Melisande Fauré was actually helped by his student Charles Koechlin, but it was the composer himself who prepared this transcription back to piano. These are wonderfully atmospheric works, and it reminds us how much music lovers should thank Maurice Maeterlinck for his play that called forth such amazing music from Sibelius, Debussy, Schoenberg and Fauré. This music fits well with Lortie's strengths: a strong feeling for the underlying structure of the piece, and the ability to communicate sentiment while eschewing cheap effects. The late Preludes are, in the words of Michael Oliver, "among the subtlest and most elusive piano pieces in existence." Lortie's interpretation is much solider and substantial than the lighter, even ethereal version of Paul Crossley on EMI. Too much wispier and I think this music would disappear altogether, but there's definitely more poetry from Crossley. Not that Lortie misses all the good stuff; there's a backbone in these little songs of loss that needs bringing out as well.
As it happens my reference recording of the Fauré Nocturnes and Barcarolles is by another Canadian, the 2014 2-disc set on ATMA Classique by Stephane Lemelin. Comparing the overlapping five works is an interesting exercise not in deciding which is best, for these are two very fine pianists working at the highest level, but rather in demonstrating how differences in temperament and style can affect how this music makes it from the score to the MP3.
The Fourth Nocturne is such a beautiful work, which takes us to some interesting places before it returns to the serene place where it began. Though Lortie is a bit brisker than the more laid-back Lemelin at the beginning, the journey is just as appealing. The Fifth Barcarolle begins with a slow burn that catches on fire, and burns pretty hot at times, flaring up now and again. I like Lortie's control here; I feel like Lemelin is running a bit hot throughout. The slighter Sixth Barcarolle, though, seems softer and more Romantic as played by Lemelin, whereas it seems little more than a filler in Lortie's recital. The Seventh Barcarolle is a spiky miniature, which Lortie plays as a short and sad story, while Lemelin is more detached. Lortie's is more like Chopin, and Lemelin's more like Satie. The most substantial piece on Lortie's disc is the 6th Nocturne, but this time he's the one who's more reflective and thoughtful, while Lemelin milks the drama a bit.
Lortie plays Percy Grainger's piano version of the song Après un rêve, and his own arrangement of the Pavane that Fauré wrote originally for piano and chorus, and then adapted as an orchestral piece. Fauré himself played what I assume is his own piano version in 1913 in Paris, that was transcribed as a piano roll. The most interesting thing here is how quickly he zips through this:
I think the composer was making a point about how sloppily sentimental the orchestral versions were being played. You'll notice that next time you hear it played in an elevator. Lortie is actually rather wistful here, and much less jaunty. Lortie's middle ground suits the Pavane very well, I think.
Over all this is definitely not a middle-ground kind of recital, however, since Lortie has a definite style and personality. It's rewarding to listen to this music closely, and I very much look forward to doing to the same with volume 2.
Sandrine Piau's new collection of songs on Naive, entitled "Après un rêve", gathers a fascinating group of pieces by a wide range of composers that all share the subjects of dreams, sleeping, and waking. "In the beginning is the night," Piau says in the introductory note included in the uncommonly full and interesting liner notes, "the cradle of our childhood terrors, peopled with creatures as fearsome as they are fascinating..."
With more than capable support from pianist Susan Manoff, Piau is outstanding in the French songs - Faure, Chausson, Poulenc - and more than capable in the three by Richard Strauss. The song set "Galgenlieder" by Vincent Bouchot was new to me, and certainly fit the mood set by the rest of the pieces chosen for this recital. I was especially pleased with the three folk song arrangements of Benjamin Britten which finish the disc. They add a final childish twist to a sometimes spooky and always disorienting hour of music that's beautifully presented.
