SOLITAIRES
KATHRYN
STOTT, Piano
BIS
2148 / ****1/2
This is a handy anthology of 20th
century French music, with the composers casting a fond retrospective glance at
musical forms and compositional styles of the past. The term “neoclassical”
comes to mind but that does not apply to all works, which are tonal with the
tendency to twelve-tone technique strongly resisted.
Jehan Alain's brief Prelude
& Fugue (1935) is a neo-Bachian tribute by a composer better known as
an organist. Henri Dutilleux's only Piano Sonata (1946-48), in three
movements, is both lyrical and jazzy in its resourceful use of harmonies,
capped by an imposing yet free-wheeling Chorale and Variations as a finale.
The best known work is Maurice Ravel's La
Tombeau De Couperin (1914-17), with six movements including a prelude,
fugue, baroque dances and toccata to close. Each piece was written in memory of
a friend killed in the Great War. British pianist Kathryn Stott is sensitive to
all form of rhythms, idioms and nuances which make for very lively
performances.
She concludes with Olivier Messiaen's Le Baiser De
L'Enfant-Jesus (Kiss Of The Infant Jesus) from the massive 20-piece
cycle Vingt Regards Sur L'Enfant Jesus (1944), a gentle lullaby built
over a repeated ground bass. New is old, and old is new in this revelatory
recital disc.
BENJAMIN
BEILMAN, Violin
YEKWON
SUNWOO, Piano
Warner
Classics 0825646008971 / ****
Every young musician's dream is to cut a
debut recording, and American violinist Benjamin Beilman, winner of the 2010
Montreal International Violin Competition, shows his mettle in an interesting
programme of contrasted works. In Schubert's lyrical Grand Duo in A
major (D.574) that opens, Beilman crafts a tone that is wiry, incisive and
always on-edge.
This might come across to the listener as acidic and unyielding
for Romantic repertoire, and is far better suited to the two 20th
century works that follow. The mystery and folk-inflected pages of Janacek's Violin
Sonata however benefit from this direct, full-frontal approach.
For Stravinsky's Divertimento, an
adaptation of music from the ballet The Fairy's Kiss (which in turn uses
Tchaikovsky's music), the narrative qualities and sense of fantasy are well
brought out. The recital comes full circle with the Vienna of Fritz Kreisler's Viennese
Rhapsodic Fantasietta, a single-movement violin concerto in all but name.
Unsurprisingly, it is based on the waltz, opening in a tonally ambiguous haze
before relaxing into the congenial dance that is so beloved. Beilman and the
ever-sensitive Korean pianist Yekwon Sunwoo, himself a multi-award winner, ably
provide the enjoyable conclusion that this disc deserves.
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