Piano Orchestra 2
Francois-Xavier Poizat, piano.
Ars Production 38 249
Total Time:  61:13
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Before the advent of radio and recorded music, music lovers wanting to experience the latest orchestral music did so through being fortunate enough to hear them in concert, or needed to find piano transcriptions.  Throughout the 19^th Century, publishers rushed to fulfill this need, often with pianists and the composers, themselves, creating reductions and editions to be used for this Hausmusik.  French pianist Francois-Xavier Poizat released an earlier album exploring some of these pieces (by Bizet, Liszt, Stravinsky, and Tchaikovsky) earlier on the label hence the “2” in this collection of pieces that further explore this aspect of piano literature.  Here the pianists who made these transcriptions are as important as the works themselves

The selections on this release have a more decided 20^th-Century, and Russian, bent.  However, the program opens with one of the important nationalist works of the 19^th Century, Smetana’s “The Moldau” from Ma Vlast.  One of the seminal works of Czech music, this piano version was adapted by Heinrich von Kaan-Albest (1852-1926).  Across his career, the composer and educator would transcribe and adapt many of Smetana’s works for piano.  This version was not published until 1934.  It is quite fascinating to hear this massive orchestral work reduced in this way, though reduction may not be quite the right word as in the larger moments of the work it would seem the performer might need an extra hand or two.  The writing here is not unlike those of Liszt, showing as much Smetana’s own debt to the composer perhaps.  Poizat manages to take us from the most simple musical beauties as the river moves on its course to the grander statements exhibiting a host of technical skill coupled with moving interpretations of this familiar work.

Stravinsky chose three pieces from his ballet Petrushka for the pianist Arthur Rubinstein.  A more popular version for two pianos was created, with the composer’s approval, by Victor Babin.  Published in 1922, this five-movement suite by the virtuoso Theodore Szanto appeared the same time as the composer’s version.  Szanto’s pieces are arranged more in keeping with the ballet’s structure and orchestral score.  As one might suspect, these are intended to provide virtuosic showpieces for the pianist but also require moments of restraint and lyrical beauty.  As such, this makes for an engaging work exhibiting the required attention to rhythmic detail and accentuation. 

The music of Khachaturian has managed to maintain a foothold in the concert repertoire through his music for two ballets, Gayane (1939) and Spartacus (1954).  It is the latter’s gorgeous “Adagio” from Act Two which Poizat includes here in a recent realization by pianist-composer Matthew Cameron.  It demonstrates a continued interest in this genre of transcriptions for piano in the modern era.  But it creates a nice relaxed buffer from the technical skill of the earlier pieces.  Here is a chance for Poizat to exhibit his interpretive style and align himself in the grand piano virtuoso style which he does superbly.  There is also some touching beauty captured in this performance.

Most of these transcriptions are rather rare on disc and so it is also somewhat surprising that Prokofiev’s Pieces for Piano, Op. 96 (1941-42) tends to appear on only a couple surveys of his piano music.  The music here is a sort of reuse of themes and music the composer would use in his opera War and Peace (1942; “Waltz”, no. 1) and the film score Lermontov (1943; no. 2, “Contradanse”, and no. 3, “Mephisto Waltz”—a sort of perpetual motion challenge).  The music has that angular modernity with sardonic with known to the composer.  Here the grandiose gestures of the opening waltz show off some of the composer’s Neo-Classical tendencies with touches of Romanticism.  These are perfectly captured in Poizat’s performance and one can hope for more Prokofiev from him in the future.

The excellent sequencing of the album transitions us from the angular style of Prokofiev’s waltzes to the more grandiose parodistic music of Ravel’s La Valse.  This is not the composer’s own transcription but a more recent one by Russian pianist Alexander Ghindin published in 2001.  The version here goes back to the orchestral score and works to be a reduction and realization of that work to piano.  The performance here captures the grandeur and sweep of the work quite well.

The album concludes with Shostakovich’s Waltz No. 2 which was originally part of a film score (The First Echelon, 1956).  The piece found new notoriety in the Kubrik film Eyes Wide Shut (1999).  This is a more recent transcription by Florian Noack serving as a perfect technical challenge encore for the album.

Poizat’s program really is an excellent one here that provides opportunity for him to show off technical skill as well as his own personal interpretive abilities for these works.  The multichannel hybrid disc is stunning with a warm sound that complements this music so well.  If one has not picked up his first volume, this may be worth adding as well.  This is a seriously excellent album all around.

The pianist will be heard in concert at the Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York, Sunday, December 2 at 7:30pm.  Those able to secure tickets for the program of Liszt and Ravel will likely not be disappointed.

Gaite Parisienne
Quebec Symphony Orchestra/Fabien Gabel
ATMA Classique 2757
Total Time:  65:24
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

The Quebec Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1902 and is the oldest active orchestra in Canada.  Its home is in Quebec City.  The ensemble has a long history of supporting Canadian composers in addition to affirming its rich French heritage which has lent it a “French America” sound.  Among its music directors have been Pierre Devaux, James DePreist, Yoav Talmi, and, as of 2012, Fabien Gabel.  During the latter’s tenure, the orchestra has begun exploring traditional symphonic French repertoire and larger-scale pieces by the likes of Mahler, Strauss, and Beethoven.  Here the ensemble tackles 20^th Century French music with ties to dance (Ravel), ballet (Poulenc), and operetta (Rosenthal’s adaptation of Offenbach’s music).  The recording is taken from concerts at the end of this past May.

Ravel’s (1875-1937) orchestration of his 8 Valses nobles et sentimentales (1912, from the 1911 piano work) is one of the composer’s homages to the music of Schubert.  There are over 100 recordings of this popular work which was premiered by the great Pierre Monteux.  The pieces here lend their own misdirects to impressionist and early 20^th Century French musical style but begin to illustrate Ravel’s own exploration of dissonance in his music.  Gabel takes a slightly relaxed feel to the opening movement but articulations are crisp and clean here.  The slight sheen is allowed to come forward more in the gorgeous “Assez lent” second movement where the restraint helps the colors unfold beautifully.  He brings out the light, dance-like quality of this music quite well.  The climaxes do not feel as forced as some performances as Gabel lets the music do the work with attention to the subtle crescendo and decrescendo moments that lend the music its energy and sense of joie de vivre.  More importantly, the recording helps show off the ensemble’s fine wind section and overall responsive ensemble playing.  Textures work so very well here as a result of the clean ensemble.  Balance also is stunning.

The ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev is responsible for some of the 20^th Centuries most famous works.  In 1923, he commissioned Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) to provide music for Les Biches and the composer would extract five pieces into the suite heard here.  Neo-Classical style blends with the more romantic melodies in this Les Six aesthetic.  Jazz harmony and rhythms, hints of Mozart’s “Prague” symphony, and even Stravinsky’s Pulcinella all roll into this truly delightful work.  The satirical opening “Rondeau”—at a nice clip here, the gorgeously-scored “Adagietto”, the delightful “Rag-Mazurka”, the all too brief “Andantino” and the witty finale all make for an engaging work.  Brass get a little chance to pop out of the texture here serving with great sarcasm.  Indeed, the humor of the music is captured excellently throughout.

The French operetta would become one of the most popular theater experiences of the 19^th Century with its influences felt in the works of Gilbert and Sullivan and in early American musical theater.  Jacques Offenbach’s (1819-1880) delightful, light writing for these many stories always included delightful dances and engaging melodies that are often encapsulated in his overtures.  Leonide Massine conceived a ballet that would reference this lost world of France’s better days in his Gaite Parisienne (1938).  The thin story line is set in the Second Empire in a Parisian café with its various patrons being depicted through Offenbach’s delightful tunes.  Massine commissioned arrangements of Offenbach’s music from Roger Desormiere but he handed this off to the young Manuel Rosenthal (1904-2003) who would create one of the more popular orchestral arrangements of his career, often overshadowing his own original work.  Sixteen selections from the complete ballet are presented here.  It is sort of like having a host of encores for this most guilty of pleasures.  The orchestra dives into these familiar tunes with great relish.  Here the light, clean articulation really makes this shine and one can marvel at the textures of this work.  In Gabel’s hands this feels like a fresh piece.

The recording is crisp and a little dry.  Performances here all sparkle though may feel a little distant at times.  There is no denying the excellent capability of the Quebec players and their technical virtuosity.  This is then a fine album of French music that features some great repertoire pieces all of which can be found in various combinations.  But it is a testament to where the orchestra is at today with an album of pieces that should have great and wide appeal.  That said, the price of it is worth it for the Poulenc alone.