Genuine presents the third release in the "Homage 'a Debussy" series. This time, we are introduced to young Chinese pianist Chenyin Li. Chenyin has collected an impressive array of international first prizes including the European Beethoven Gold Medal, the Jacques Samuel Competition, the Sheffield Piano Competition, the Dudley International Competition and the Campillos International Piano Competition.
Claude Debussy was profoundly permeated by his French roots. However, his Ballad demonstrates that Russian influences from Tchaikovsky also played an important role in his compositions. In works such as the Danse bohemian and the Arabesques, the fusion of both French and Russian inspiration comes together for a unique aural experience.
This new release on the Genuin label is the introduction to a 4 CD Blüthner-Debussy collection. Praised by the critics for her fiery temperament, exceptional charisma and great command of her instrument in the romantic and modern repertoires, Brazilian-born pianist Juliana Steinbach is considered as one of the most gifted artists of the young generation.
The young, talented Finnish-Russian pianist Julia Dahlkvist has provided the finale in the four-part Bluthner-Debussy cycle on GENUIN. And she shows that etudes certainly do not have to be dull, nor do children's pieces have to be only for young people. From the slightly elegiac, finely satirical tones of Doctor gradus ad parnassum (Children's Corner) to the ecstatic chord sequences of the last Etudes, she works out the infinitely detailed richness of Debussy's piano works with superior technique and audible joy in the tone colors.
Helene Schuetz writes of this new release: “The inspiration for this recording and the choice of works came from the Gigue that ends J.S. Bach’s Partita in B flat major. When I first heard it in concert I knew immediately that this composition would work wonderfully for the harp. With the Gigue as my starting point, I began to arrange the Partita for harp. Of course, the instrument does have other tonal qualities than the piano – and, like any instrument, it has its technical limits when it comes to performance practice. When it comes to chromaticism, the mechanics of the harp are more limited than those of the piano, and one only has eight rather than ten fingers to play with. But it was precisely that challenge that fascinated me in the process of arranging the works: you first need to have a clear idea of the work's intention and to have formed your own view of its interpretation. The task then is to find ways and means to develop one's ideas and perhaps to achieve an even clearer interpretation than would have been possible on the original instrument. In this way, arranging the work for another instrument intensifies the performance, because the use of a new instrument allows other, new facets in the compositions to be illustrated and new tonal nuances achieved…”
Since Marina Baranova first played Clair de Lune as an eager nine-year-old a question had stayed with her: Was there another side to Debussy's music, one influenced by his turbulent private life and tempestuous relationships? "When you think of the great impressionist painters, you think of light, and hope, and love," she says. "But Debussy adored the darkness of Baudelaire, and was heavily influenced by Wagner. The titles he gave his pieces also hint at hidden meanings, so I thought it would be interesting to explore this 'shadow' side and my feelings towards it." Now Marina Baranova's album Unfolding Debussy will be released to mark the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Claude Debussy's death in March 2018. Despite being "absolutely in love" with Debussy, Baranova had also grown tired of playing his work in the common, classical way. Coming back to his music, she resolved to discover new ways of playing while exploring this darkness, and set about deconstructing some of his best loved pieces. It was here she had a vision, and the concept of "unfolding" his work took shape. To emulate the richness of Debussy's original compositions, Baranova sought a broader palette and different textures. "Every instrument has it's own color," she says, and so a number of different pianos and keyboards were employed to help to weave her magic. An Una Corda, a Fender Rhodes, midi keyboards and a C. Bechstein grand piano all feature, as do a number of delays and arpeggiators; anything to match the mood and the colours she could see in her head. Unusually for a classical pianist, she took it upon herself to both write and sing lyrics for various tracks, something she claims "wasn't a decision, but an intuition. At the start, this wasn't my intention, but the words just came."
With two critically-lauded releases on Navona Records, pianist Eliane Rodrigues returns with Reflets, showcasing the pianist’s nuanced and thoughtful performances of fifteen works by Claude Debussy. While it might seem that child prodigies are commonplace in the world of classical music, only a few truly make a lasting impact, one that lives on long after those prodigies have passed well into their adulthoods. Mozart began to play piano at the age of three, Beethoven did so at seven and a half, and Georges Bizet did so before his tenth birthday. Pianist Eliane Rodrigues, who began composing at three, played her first recital at five and first performed with an orchestra when she was just six years of age, can certainly be counted among those prodigious musicians, as evidenced on her latest recording, Reflets. The album opens with “Suite Bergamasque,” one of Debussy’s most well-known piano suites. The dynamic contrasts in the moods of the suite’s four pieces are well suited to Rodrigues’ sensitive and vivid style. Debussy is credited as one of the ‘founders’ of Impressionist music, distinguished by its focus on suggestions and atmosphere, a world that Rodrigues also inhabits here, as evidenced by her cascading and powerfully textured performance of Debussy’s “Ballade.” “Pour le Piano,” certainly one of the composer’s most moving works for solo piano, features rapid, brilliant passages that fully emphasize the pianist’s virtuosity. That impressionistic ability to invoke a mood or a feeling carries on with “First Arabesque in E Major,” one of a pair composed early in Debussy’s career. “Images,” comprised of two ‘books’ of three pieces each, ranging from the subdued “Homage à Rameau” to the energy of “Mouvement,” marked by the torrent of notes in its finale. Eliane Rodrigues was born in Rio de Janiero, where the performances that she gave in her childhood bore fruit when she was awarded the Gina Bachauer prize at the Van Cliburn Competition in the United States at only 18 years of age. She has gone on to perform internationally, as well as to hold the position of professor at the Royal Conservatoire in Antwerp.
This newest release from the Naxos Idil Biret archive features the works of Claude Debussy. "For well versed insiders of music, Idil Biret is since years a trusted, respected and beloved artist... The discipline of her powerful grasp and approach of the music has led, especially for works of our century, to a stylistic congruence between the written score and the interpretation...(that) makes us all aware of an outstanding artistic potency of the highest standards of excellence!" (DIE WELT, Germany 1979) "Idil Biret takes the opening movement of Debussy's Children's Corner very briskly and impetuously, but the performance then settles down and is sensitive and well characterized, especially the closing Golliwog's Cakewalk. Good recording and recommendable couplings too." (PENGUIN GUIDE, England 2009) "There is no question whatever that Biret's reading of the Ravel Gaspard de la nuit takes it's place among the most delicately wrought Ravel interpretations by any of the many great pianists renowned for their performances of French piano music." (SOHO WEEKLY NEWS, USA 1977)
This album has a fascinating concept. Pianist Lori Sims first performs each work by Debussy on piano, and then Andrew Rathbun, saxophone, and Jeremy Siskind, piano perform each work, directly following the other, in Siskind's more jazz oriented arrangements. Lori Sims received the first prize gold medal at the 1998 Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition. Other prizes include first place co-winner of the 1994 Felix Bartholdy-Mendelssohn Competition in Berlin and winner of the 1993 American Pianists' Association Competition with outstanding distinction from the jury. She has performed throughout America, Europe and China, including the Israel Philharmonic, the Utah Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Spokane Chamber Orchestra, the Kalamazoo Symphony and the NordDeutsche-Rundfunks Orchestra. Toronto native Andrew Rathbun is widely esteemed as one of the most creative and accomplished saxophonists, composers and bandleaders of his generation. On tenor and soprano saxophones he has achieved a rare depth of lyricism, authoritative swing and compositional intelligence. Recording steadily as a leader since the late 1990s, he has documented his stirring original music with an array of extraordinary lineups, featuring the talents of such greats as Kenny Wheeler, Billy Hart, George Garzone, Phil Markowitz and Bill Stewart. “Rathbun’s lines dance and glide,” writes David Whiteis of JazzTimes, “reflecting both childlike wonder and well-honed artistry.” Pianist-composer Jeremy Siskind is “a genuine visionary” (Indianapolis Star) who “seems to defy all boundaries” (JazzInk) with music “rich in texture and nuance” (Downbeat). A top finisher in several national and international jazz piano competitions, Siskind is a two-time laureate of the American Pianists Association and the winner of the Nottingham International Jazz Piano Competition. Since making his professional debut juxtaposing Debussy’s Etudes with jazz standards at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Hall, Siskind has established himself as one of the nation’s most innovative and virtuosic modern pianists.
Catherine Kautsky is professor of music and chair of keyboard studies at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and boasts an enviable multi-faceted resume of performing and writing credits. Nearly everything about her recording of Debussy’s 24 Preludes is just right, from the relaxed animation and subtle gradations of tone throughout Danseuses de Delphes to Feux d’artifice’s combination of neo-Lisztian bravura and dry wit. The flickering quality of Voiles’ double notes somehow lightens the static whole-note-scale harmony.
Kautsky ‘s intimately scaled reading of Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir brings out the music’s implicit minuet feeling that we don’t hear in heavier interpretations. In Des pas sur la neige, Kautsky not only makes the soft left-hand triplets and expressive right-hand melody timbrally distinct, but her faster than usual tempo also conveys a lighter, more floating ambience than today’s solemn, bleaker norm. Kautsky also communicates the ragged dance qualities of La serenade interrompue, La danse de Puck, Minstrels, and General Lavine–eccentric to perfection, although La puerta del vino moves too fast and impatiently for its habañera rhythms to seduce.
While many pianists make mush out of Brouillards’ middle-register chords, Kautsky clarifies their inner rhythms, although her very capable handling of Book 2 No. 10’s alternating thirds yields to Steven Osborne’s brisker, more shimmering rendition. Her lovely account of La cathedral engloutie observes the unmarked yet implied tempo changes Debussy made in his 1913 Welte-Mignon piano roll recording (as do Osborne and Paul Jacobs, but not, interestingly enough, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli). If the tumultuous Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest lacks Osborne’s super-precise dynamic calibration and surface sheen, the sensitively nuanced Ondine and La terrasse des audiences du clair de lune compensate. The engineering’s warm piano sonority and discreet resonance befits Kautsky’s intelligent and insightful Debussy artistry.
Debussy: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 2 / Alessandra Ammara
Piano Classics
CD
$21.99Sep 18, 2020
In 2016 Alessandra Ammara won high praise for an album of Mendelssohn duets with her husband Roberto Prosseda. The following year her Piano Classics debut of Debussy inspired no less glowing reviews. The sequel elegantly completes her recordings of the Préludes and Images with their second volumes, coupled with the more innocent pleasures of the Suite Bergamasque. Thus the album spans Debussy’s first and penultimate published piano cycles, for while the Suite appeared in print only in 1905, it was composed back in 1890. In their titles, three of the four movements – a Prelude, Minuet and Passepied – invoke the formal elegance of a Baroque dance suite, but the elusive character and freedom of the music owes more to the poetry of Verlaine, who used the archaic ‘bergamasque’ term in his poem Clair de lune, which as the suite’s third movement became Debussy’s single greatest hit. In both the Images and Préludes, Debussy invested their second volumes with darker, gloomier tone-colors and higher contrasts with wild outbursts and even manic humor. The portraits of individual characters and landscapes are more sharply drawn, more charged with private intensity. They make accordingly greater demands upon the interpreter, nowhere more so than in the dark, wild magic of the ‘Feux d’artifice’ – Fireworks – which close out the Préludes. The three Images in Book 2 are linked by their association with the Debussy’s friend Louis Laloy, and by extension with their mutual fascination with China and the alien world of East-Asian culture. The bells in ‘Cloches à travers les feuilles’ ring from the church in Laloy’s home-town; the title of ‘Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut’ was proposed by Laloy himself, and the goldfish – ‘Poissons d’or’ of the triptych’s final panel – swim and shimmer through much Chinese lacquer artwork.
Debussy: Jeux, Khamma & La boite a joujoux / Lan Shui, Singapore Symphony
BIS
SACD
$21.99Aug 04, 2017
The previous Debussy disc from these performers was reviewed with considerable enthusiasm, especially in the case of La Mer. I carefully avoided reading my colleagues' words prior to assessing this second disc but, having now repaired that, I am pleased to be able to echo their opinions. The SSO and Lan Shui have indeed got a remarkable feel for this music. Combined with a very fine and detailed recording in surround this second disc is also a winner.
The first thing that struck me was the structural clarity brought to the greatest work, Jeux. My list of alternative performances, going back to Jean Martinon in 1974, exhibit much refinement and tonal beauty but not until this new BIS SACD have I been so aware of the architecture underlying the beauty. I can only echo Jean-Pascal Vachon's booklet note when he states that this is one of the hardest pieces in the symphonic repertoire to analyse. To a listener this seemed to progress inevitably to its cryptic final notes, at no point was it just a wash of impressionist sound. The composer remarked ironically that he came to realise that a choreographer is a man who is very strong on arithmetic. This cleanly delineated performance would surely be less difficult for the dancers to count than many an alternative.
Jeux is only about a quarter of the disc and the other two works, also composed just before the First World War, are much less performed in the concert hall. A search online showed little evidence of stagings of La Boîte à joujoux and Khamma has yet to be staged. Neither were completed by Debussy himself. In the case of Khamma he orchestrated just a few pages before handing over to Charles Kœchlin "under his supervision". The work apparently annoyed Debussy, presumably the scenario lacked the cohesion he wanted but he could also have been doubtful about working with the notorious dancer Maud Allan. He described it as: "that queer ballet, with its trumpet calls, which suggest a riot or an outbreak of fire, and give one the shivers." Debussy's music was quite adventurous and contained, according to the composer, "the most recent discoveries of harmonic chemistry. " Kœchlin recalls that Debussy was happy with his orchestration. One commentator even suggests he came back to the piece. Certainly the plot line is sufficient to make for an eventful work. Kœchlin was no mean composer himself and he makes a splendidly dramatic job of Debussy's score, sufficient, one would have thought, to make it more frequent in our concert halls than it is. Perhaps it is true that the final score sounds more like Kœchlin than Debussy but since Debussy approved, that seems irrelevant. Here the SSO and Shui give it their considerable best and it makes for good listening whatever its perceived shortcomings.
The final piece is his ballet for children La Boîte à joujoux. In this case he orchestrated most of it leaving a little to be completed, when illness overtook him, by his friend Caplet. Entertaining though this piece is it does not have the coherence of Ravel's Ma mère l'Oye and to my mind it is not too surprising it is neglected. However, second class Debussy is a great deal better than many another lesser composer. Performed as it is here the work charms the ear throughout and is very much worth the occasional hearing.
I have already mentioned the very informative booklet notes by Professor Vachon. With two out of three works which are obscure they are more than usually useful and maintain BIS' reputation for providing high quality documentation. Overall I would recommend this most strongly for Jeux and regard Khamma as a valuable reminder that some works do not deserve neglect. The recording allows the spacious acoustic of Singapore's Esplanade Concert Hall to be heard, a reminder that yet another city has a better large hall than London.
