Classical CDs: Woden, waltzes and watchmaking

Ravel: The Complete Works with Piano François-Xavier Poizat, Philharmonia/Simone Menezes et al(Aparté)

Ravel was by no means a prolific composer but, including absolutely everything in his catalogue that includes piano, François-Xavier Poizat’s collection stretches to six CDs. Even as someone pretty familiar with Ravel there was lots here I was finding for the first time, alongside much-loved favourites like Le Tombeau de Couperin and Valses Nobles et Sentimentales.

Lots of Ravel’s orchestral pieces (including the two just mentioned) started out as piano pieces which he later orchestrated. But the piano versions are more than sketches for later expansion – works like the Pavane pour une infante défunte are, for me, even more impactful as solos. Others, like the Lizstian Jeu d’eau, are entirely pianistic conceptions, and popular showpieces to this day. François-Xavier Poizat has very different styles for these different modes: utterly simple and modest in the Pavane, glittering and iridescent in the Jeux, and in Miroirs.

The first disc has the two concertos, accompanied by the Philharmonia under Simone Menezes, as well as the solo La Valse. I have never been convinced that the latter works – but Poizat’s heroic virtuosity (in Alexander Ghindin’s 2001 arrangement, not Ravel’s own) just about won me over: it’s extraordinary playing that reaches a fantastically hysterical climax. The concertos are good: the Concerto for the Left Hand is sunnier than it sometimes sounds, and the orchestra fizz in dialogue with the piano in the G major concerto, with some fine trumpet playing.

CD2 may have been my favourite, for the undiscovered “rarities and miniatures” it contains. The miniature Frontispiece, for three pianists, is utterly peculiar and beguiling, the Sérénade Grotesque (the earliest piece in the set) owes something to both Debussy and Satie, very current in 1893. Much of the music, though, looks to the past: the perky Menuet antique or the neoclassical Le Tombeau de Couperin, dedicated to friends killed in WWI, and played with fluid poise. Poizats’s playing is suitably refined in the filigree textures of the Sonatine, but can also dance. The Valses Nobles have both a sensuous rise and fall as well as the crunchiest dissonances to be found anywhere in Ravel. Poizat revels in them.

I was very much taken with the songs, an area of Ravel’s output I wasn’t so familiar with. They date from 1893 (when he was 18) up to his last completed pieces, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (1932-3), an affecting final nod to his Basque heritage. The Vocalise-étude en forme de Habanera is sultry and alluring (I fondly remember playing it when I was at school – safe to say Poizat makes a somewhat better fist of it) as are the Chansons madécasses, in which Ravel explores the erotic poetry of Évariste-Désiré de Parny, baritone Thomas Dolié and Poizat joined by a small chamber ensemble. I liked the simplicity of Suzanne Jerosme’s delivery and Brenda Poupard’s sparkle – and in all the songs, Poizat is a sympathetic, flexible accompanist.

This boxset is very handsomely produced, with detailed notes (in French and English), full credits, all the song texts (with translations) and lots of pictures in a beautiful, 124-page booklet. It is a fitting setting for Poizat’s performances, which celebrate the craftmanship of the man Stravinsky called “the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers” but also the humanity behind that façade. Bernard Hughes

William Christie: The Complete Erato Recordings Les Arts Florissants/William Christie (Erato)

William Christie has been around for quite a while and racked up quite a catalogue of recordings. This 61-disc boxset does what it says on the tin: it’s all his recordings for Erato, spanning from just 18 years (averaging over three per year) with his group Les Arts Florissants, in sacred and operatic repertoire from Monteverdi to Mozart. I must confess I didn’t listen to all 61 CDs – although I will in due course – but on the extensive sampling I did these are all as technically refined and exquisitely beautiful as you would expect from this group.

Of the things I didn’t know (but should have), there is plenty of Christie’s favourite composer Mark-Antoine Charpentier (seven whole CDs) and an excellent selection of motets by Henri Desmarets (1661-1741) sung affectingly by five voices, one to a part. I am no expert on Handel operas, but enjoyed Orlando (taped in 1996), particularly Rosa Mannion’s Dorinda. There are also Alcina, Theodora and Serse discs, but I was grabbed by the Handel Violin Sonatas, with Hiro Kurosaki and Christie on harpsichord. I also liked the selection of Rameau “grands motets”. There are five of his operas represented – more familiar territory – but the motets were new to me, and an interesting mixture of the drama that he couldn’t avoid and a humble piety, heard in tracks like “Quam dilecta” or “Altaria Tua”.

Of the things I did previously know, there is a Monteverdi Vespers in the solo voices version I have come to prefer, and a Dido and Aeneas from 1994, one of the earliest releases in the set. Here the orchestral playing is unimpeachable, light and lively, and the French principals are convincing in their English diction and rhythms (the chorus less so…) The King Arthur is perhaps even better, with an excellent Mark Padmore calling us to Woden’s Hall, the band spry and the chorus more English sounding.

Perhaps my only gripe would be that these performances, for all their unquestionable tastefulness, sometimes lack a bit of blood and guts. It is all perhaps a bit too polite. There are some notable – and welcome – exceptions. The “Dies Irae” from Mozart’s Requiem is fiery and bold (and succeeds the fastest “Christe eleison” fugue I’ve ever heard) and there are some stormy passages in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, including a dazzling “Marten aller Arten” by Christine Schäfer. Die Entführung – perhaps my favourite Mozart opera – had a highlight of the whole box, a youngish Ian Bostridge singing Belmonte’s aria “Wenn der Freude Tränen fließen” with utter commitment.

The box is generously stocked with CDs, but the booklet is less lavish. It comes in at only 39, even with everything in three languages. There is a brief article by Christie and a longer biographical survey by Marc Trautman, but the booklet has no specific information on things like performers, recording dates and so on, which need to be gleaned from the very small print on the individual sleeves. For something set up as a monument to a body of work, this felt like the one aspect that wasn’t as bounteous as it could have been. Otherwise, this collection, which Christie likens to “a kind of musical orchard where each disc is like a fruit tree”, is recommended. Bernard Hughes

Tippett: Piano Concerto, Symphony No. 2 Steven Osborne (piano), London Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner (LPO)

Michael Tippett’s unfairly neglected Piano Concerto was inspired by his hearing the great Walter Gieseking play Beethoven’s lyrical 4th Concerto in 1950. Tippett’s response was to compose a work which eschews conflict between soloist and orchestra, largely rejecting the tendency for contemporary composers to treat the piano as a percussion instrument. The results are often exquisite; if you’re a fan of The Midsummer Marriage or the Corelli Fantasia, you’ll love it. The soloist booked to give the first performance, Jules Katchen, emphatically didn’t love the work, jumping ship shortly before the 1955 premiere, complaining that it was unplayable. Louis Kentner stepped up as a replacement and proved him wrong, though the concerto’s reputation as an awkward, difficult piece has stuck. Listen to Steven Osborne’s live recording and you’ll wonder what the fuss was about. He knows exactly when to step back, his solo line part of the orchestra in the first movement’s radiant, twinkling opening, and letting solo winds and horns take the limelight in the rhapsodic slow movement. Tippett’s diaphanous textures have rarely sounded so transparent, Edward Gardner’s LPO swooning.

Tippett’s Symphony No. 2 is a transitional work, pointing the way to the composer’s leaner, punchier mature style but readily accessible. Colin Davis’s 1968 LSO disc still sounds superb, though Gardner’s live account is the best modern version. This is such an involving and exciting work, the first movement’s pulsating low Cs inspired by Vivaldi but never sounding remotely like baroque pastiche. Gardner drives the music forward to thrilling effect and the playing is superb, high strings and horns worthy of special praise. Tippett’s “Adagio molto e tranquillo” boasts an exquisite trumpet solo, and the scherzo really dances, Stephen Johnson’s sleeve note suggesting that Tippett’s writing for harp and piano echoes that in Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements, composed just a decade before. Gardner’s finale is swifter and punchier than Davis’s, the glorious final chord shimmering. This is an extraordinary piece, and surely one of the great 20th century symphonies. What’s not to love: two of Tippett’s most engaging and approachable orchestral works on a single disc, brilliantly played and wonderfully recorded. Essential listening.

Pierrot Portraits: Music by Schumann, Debussy, Korngold, Schoenberg et al Claire Booth (soprano), Ensemble 360 (Onyx)

Pierrot Portraits celebrates both 150^th birthday boy Arnold Schoenberg and a commedia dell’arte character whose roots go back to the 17^th century. Do read soprano Claire Booth’s booklet essay on the character’s history from “lovelorn buffoon” to something much darker, a figure “who could murder, commit incest, get riotously drunk… flouting every taboo”. No prizes for guessing that the main work in this intriguing collection is Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, Booth’s lucid sprechstimme clearly following the advice of Pierre Boulez, with whom Booth first performed the piece. In his words, “you sing a bit, you speak a bit”. Booth can switch between the two extremes within a single short phrase, the vocal colour constantly changing, alert to the quirkier details in Schoenberg’s instrumental accompaniment. Try her in “Der kranke Mond”: the way that she intones the word “Liebesleid” will give you the heebie jeebies, in a good way.  This work should be unsettling; Booth manages that, but this is also the most sonically alluring, texturally interesting recording of Pierrot Lunaire that I’ve heard, Ensemble 360’s alert, zippy playing adding to its appeal.

The couplings are well-chosen, familiar miniatures by Schumann and Debussy nestling alongside some real rarities. The “Valse amoureuse” from Amy Beach’s Les Rêves de Colombine is delectable salon music, and there’s an idiomatic cello and piano transcription of the “Tanzlied des Pierrot” from Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt. Booth is terrific in Max Kowalski’s “Nordpolfahrt” and gives us plenty of playfulness in “Colombine” by Poldowski. Thea Musgrave’s eight-movement Pierrot has Pierrot, Colombine and Harlequin voiced by violin, clarinet and piano respectively – a nifty idea, though the results are dourer and greyer than you might hope.

Light Stories Matthew Barley (cello) (Signum)

Light Stories, first performed in September 2024, combines dance, lighting and solo cello, the work mapping cellist Matthew Barley’s voyage from adolescent trauma through to emotional release. Barley’s sleeve note movingly recalls a drug-induced suicide attempt whilst he was a pupil at Chetham’s School, and the realisation that music saved his life (“it gave me a focus, a purpose,”). Barley. Travelling to Brazil in 2019 and taking part in an ayahuasca ceremony was a key step in his eventual recovery, after which he felt able “to make music more deeply and joyfully than ever before”. This album contains ten of the pieces used in the staged performance, eight of them by Barley. “Spell” is a spiky call to attention, the avian effects created on small Brazilian pipes, and “Cathedrals and Caves” a beautiful multi-tracked chaconne. Italian cellist and composer Giovanni Sollima’s name was new to me; his “Hell 1” a disarmingly lyrical piece inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Barley’s unravelling is potently expressed at the start of “Timefolding”; a distorted quotation from Elgar’s Cello Concerto a poignant symbol of what he was in danger of losing, after which things take an upturn. An idiomatic arrangement of Bach’s chorale prelude Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ restores order, and the disc closes in a mood of equivocal affirmation. Barley’s rich, impassioned playing has sufficient charisma to hold one’s attention and he’s beautifully recorded.

Dall’Abaco and the Art of Variation: Cello Sonatas and Trios for 3 cellos by Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco Elinor Frey (cellos) and Accademia de’ Dissonanti (Passacaille) 

This is Canadian/American cellist Elinor Frey’s eighth album for the Belgian Passacaille label. Her 2022 album of Early Italian Cello Concertos (Analekta) recorded in Calgary Canada was wonderful. Here, Frey makes a very strong case indeed for the compositions of Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco (aka Joseph Abaco, 1710-1805), with the trios for 3 cellos a particular strong point. These are measured, beautifully shaped and fluent performances. The album is cleverly constructed, with the sonatas – Dall’Abaco apparently wrote over sixty of them – alternating with the trios. It has grown on me the more I have listened to it. The “adagio” second movement of Trio No. 3 is heartfelt with every ritardando and rest perfectly judged. I see that Elinor Frey has a forthcoming rare UK appearance in late January as the guest of the Oxford University Music Department. When I note that her concert in the Holywell Music Room has free admission, I’m inclined to swap the phrase “under the radar” for “you’re gonna need a bigger radar.” Sebastian Scotney

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