Fifth and final volume of Alpha's Faure chamber music series. French master composer and pedagogue whose harmonic advancements greatly influenced later generations of composers, including those of the famed 'Les Six'. Renowned pianist Eric Le Sage completed an internationally acclaimed Robert Schumann cycle for Alpha in 2010. Violinist Daishin Kashimoto is presently concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Mr. Le Sage and Mr. Kashimoto have collaborated often in concert.

FAURÉ Cello Sonatas No. 1 & 2. Romance. Elégie. Sérénade. Papillon. Berceuse. Clarinet Trio, op. 120 1 • François Salque (vc); Éric Le Sage (pn); 1 Paul Meyer (cl) • ALPHA 600 (74:02)


Here we have the type of recital that has almost disappeared from the face of the earth: quintessentially French performances of quintessentially French music. As an analogy, I should also point out that quintessentially German, Italian, Austrian, Dutch, and British performances have also faded to a precious few. The standardization of both instrumental style and sound has, by and large, imposed a generically pretty but nationally ambiguous style and sound on orchestras, solo musicians, and chamber groups the world over. Heck, we even have a hard enough time coming up with a quintessentially American sound anymore.


But Éric Le Sage and François Salque are indeed throwbacks to at least the 1940s. Salque’s cello avoids the generically rich, dark sort of timbre one hears from most such players the world over nowadays, but has rather a lean, edgy sonority not unlike Pierre Fournier. This does not mean that Salque’s low range lacks depth of tone, just that it’s not a basso profundo sound; it’s more like a basso cantate, which is fine by me. Likewise, Le Sage’s piano plays with light and shade, color and nuance, in a way that, fortunately, has never entirely disappeared from the lexicon of French pianists on record, from Cortot to Thibaudet.


Thus these performances reach inside the music not just in terms of emotional response but also in terms of coloristic response. They do not lack for energy or excitement when the music calls for it, even in such a piece as the op. 69 Romance, yet despite a CD cover that is almost completely black with white and blood-red lettering, their playing is a virtual rainbow. Some modern listeners, more used to the plush generic quality of many musicians nowadays, may find this approach foreign to them or difficult to comprehend, but as the expression goes, “this is the real deal.” As good as the recording of mostly the same music by cellist Ina-Esther Joost Ben-Sasson is (Naxos 8570545), my decision in favor of this release is predicated by exactly the virtues (or, if you prefer, idiosyncrasies) mentioned in the second paragraph. I should also add that Paul Meyer manages to fit in very well indeed in the performance of the Clarinet Trio. You simply can’t sing Italian comic patter like an Italian, you can’t conduct Má Vlast as well as a Czech-born conductor can, and you can’t play French music any better than the French do it.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Unaffectedly straightforward with a disarming simplicity in which charm lifts imperceptibly into the most intense utterance, moving us compellingly through the salon-like early pieces to the increasingly desolate soundscapes of old age. Exemplary. Classic. Spellbinding.



FAURÉ Nocturnes (complete) • Charles Owen (pn) • AVIE 2133 (79:36)


Fauré’s son, Philippe Fauré-Fremiet, described the composer’s playing: “His hands were strong and looked heavy; in fact they were supple and light. He hardly raised them above the keys but was able to obtain any effect he wanted. He had a horror of virtuosity, of rubato and effects aimed at making the audience swoon. He followed the printed notes meticulously, keeping strict time. What was so overpowering about his playing lay below the surface, in the areas of thought and emotion where teaching is helpless to guide you.” To which Jessica Duchen, in her annotations for David Jalbert’s unfortunate tilt at the nocturnes (Endeavour 1014, Fanfare 30:1), adds, “To play Fauré’s piano works successfully, a pianist must have a tremendously flexible technique, a strong sense of contrapuntal voicing and, perhaps above all, the ability to convey those sensuous, intertwining lines and subtle harmonies without allowing structural rigor to slacken. While playing this music with no expressive fluctuation whatsoever could seem excessive, a healthy respect for his ‘pudeur’—modesty veiling the immense sensuality beneath—is as essential to faithful Fauré interpretation as good posture is to the dance.” Both observations describe Charles Owen’s way with the nocturnes—unaffectedly straightforward, rhythmically steady (but breathing and never rigid or inflexible), the pedal sparingly used, allowing a light touch (graciously deft in animated passages) to articulate with absolute clarity while imparting moments of aquarelle-like color (rather than the heavily sustained impasto of the average pianist), all making for a disarming simplicity in which charm lifts imperceptibly into the most intense utterance, moving us compellingly through the salon-like early pieces, the opulent ecstasies of the middle nocturnes, and the increasingly desolate and despairing soundscapes of old age. Duchen confects a final elegance with other, no less gracefully penetrating, annotations. Avie captures Owen closely, at the optimal point where clarity flares into spaciousness. Exemplary. Classic. Spellbinding. And enthusiastically recommended.


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

FAURÉ Barcarolles (complete) . 3 Romances sans paroles , op. 17 • Charles Owen (pn) • AVIE AV 2240 (63:20)


At the midcentury there were still artists active who had known Fauré and were cognizant of his world, however rapidly it may have been passing. One thinks of Marguerite Long, Yvonne Lefébure, Vlado Perlemuter, Robert Casadesus, Jean Doyen. As Fauré passed from living memory, a new generation of pianists approached his works with the generic, heavily pedaled, freely rubatomized manner that was the pianistic lingua franca of the 20th century’s last third. Matters of touch—light or sec, and sparing—and rhythmic steadiness were forgotten or ignored, and the public came to accept what was offered, that is, a sound very different from that which Fauré took for granted. The matter is not one of insisting upon slavish adherence to a “sacred tradition”—now, in any case, beyond recall—but of cultivating those oddments of style facilitating the optimum realization of Fauré’s music, which trails a dimension not always evident from close reading of its performing directions.


The marvel is the breathing naturalness with which Charles Owen has accomplished it—a marvel so complete that one is delighted, moved, entranced, noting only how deftly it is done. Without giving accompaniments or subsidiary figures undue prominence, every part is alive and singing with absolute, silvery clarity. Complementing his nonpareil traversal of the nocturnes (Avie 2133, Fanfare 32:1), Owen wings the barcarolles’ expressive curve, from early blithesomeness through middle-period pith and wizardry to the spare poetry of wizened old age, with a sympathetic grasp reviving, for an hour, a vanished world. One leaves it overcome with gratitude—gratitude to the composer, the artist, and for their rare endeavor, which has turned out so ravishingly well. For decades, the great and aptly named Jean Doyen’s traversal of the complete piano works was an unfailing touchstone for revealing Fauré’s manner of saying important things conversationally. Unfortunately, Erato’s masters were in sorry shape and their transfer to CDs was a disappointment. The good news is that Owen overtops him, and in sound of detailed, open, savoring immediacy. Jessica Duchen’s knowing annotations—a beautifully written contribution to the Fauré literature—confect a final elegance. This is for the ages, classic and indispensable.


FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis

Fauré: Piano Music for Four Hands

Fauré: Barcarolles (Complete) / Ballade, Op. 19

This disc is part of a series of Faur�'s complete piano music and contains two works better known in orchestral form with some less well known originals. The four pieces from Pell�as et M�lisande in their original version are some of the most subtle of the composer's music written for the stage. The opening Pr�lude sets the scene and introduces themes representing the naivety of the heroine and the passion she is unable to escape. This is followed by a Fileuse, the introduction to Act 3 where M�lisande is at her spinning wheel. The Sicilienne, introduction to the fountain scene of Act 2, is the one part of the suite Faur� composed some years earlier and scored himself for sextet. Finally, La mort de M�lisande (The Death of M�lisande) is an intense parallel to the heroine's music in the Pr�lude, portraying her Act 5 death scene. The Pavane was orchestrated at a later date and the original version for piano of this well-known piece shows that the simple archaic melody should be played at a faster speed than is the case with the orchestral or choral versions. The four Valses-caprices are not a cycle. The two earlier pieces were written in the early 1880s, the later pair a decade later. Although Saint-Sa�ns enjoyed Opp. 30 and 38. Their indebtedness to Chopin and their attempt at capriciousness does not suit Faur�'s introverted nature. The later pieces are more successful and. #despite retaining traces of the virtuoso style, are more introspective, nearer to the true nature of the composer. The Mazurka hints again at a tribute to Chopin, but shows no debts to Polish folk rhythms. Similar in style to the Valses Caprices, it has a haunting central slow section.

FAURÉ: Preludes, Op. 103 / Impromptus

Fauré: Nocturnes Nos. 1-6 / Theme and Variations, Op. 73

Classical Music

Gabriel Faure' chamber works, long overshadowed by his popular Requiem, are regaining their rightful place, as the success of his Violin Sonatas and Cello Sonatas attests. Dubbed the 'Master of Charm' by Debussy, Faure responded to the quasi-orchestra.

Gabriel Fauré’s chamber works, long overshadowed by his popular Requiem (Naxos 8.550765), are regaining their rightful place. This new release from the Kungsbacka Piano Trio follows their recording of Fauré’s First Piano Quartet and other chamber works (8.573042), described by Gramophone as ‘a delectable way into Fauré’s chamber music’. The program features the less frequently heard original version, with clarinet, of the Piano Trio, the Second Piano Quartet, which includes an evocation of the bells of Cadirac near the composer’s home, the Romances sans paroles, described by Marcel Proust as ‘intoxicating’ and one of Fauré’s most famous works, the Berceuse from the Dolly Suite.

This travelogue starts at the great Cathedral of Chartres, and moves to Brittany and Normandy in northern France, as well as Franche Comte and Burgundy. Included is music by Faure.

Vocal Recital: Dawson, Lynne - Poulenc, F. / Hahn, R. / Chau

No fewer than four major composers - Faure, Debussy, Schoenberg and Sibelius - were inspired by Maurice Maeterlink's play Pelleas et Melisande (1892). Given that we celebrate anniversaries of Faure and Schoenberg in 2024, Paavo Jarvi here offers his reading of their settings of Pelleas et Melisande with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, whose Music Director he was for almost ten years. Debussy was so much involved with his own operatic setting of Pelleas et Melisande that the famous English actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell turned to Gabriel Faure to write incidental music for the play; this music then became an orchestral suite in four movements that is considered to be Faure's symphonic masterpiece. Schoenberg followed advice given by his much-admired role model Richard Strauss in 1902 and composed his own symphonic poem based on Pelleas et Melisande. It's complex combinations of musical motifs and the rich fabric of the large-scale orchestra not only captivate us but also reveal his own vision of this archaic and yet universal story.