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Guest post by Frances Jones

One of the bonuses of teaching is that from time to time you are introduced to new repertoire. Sometimes, you get the opportunity to change your view of a composer that was really only based on a passing experience. 

A pupil of mine has recently been learning a piece by Cecile Chaminade, a composer whose music I had until now associated with a flautist house-mate practising diligently in the run up to a recital. A beautiful work, the Concertino, but the flute can be surprising loud in close quarters. 

Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944) composed throughout her life, and left a large number of piano works, in addition to orchestral music and songs. The piece that my pupil learnt, and that inspired me to explore Chaminade’s music, was the Idylle, Op. 126, No. 1, from her Album for Children of 1907. It has a melody that becomes a real ear worm; marked bien chanté, it does indeed feel very singable. It’s such a satisfying piece to play; the melody in the right hand is accompanied by a simple enough bass line helped along with discreet pedalling. The middle section requires a little more diligent practice for the aspiring Grade 4 pianist (the piece has recently been on the ABRSM Grade 4 syllabus) and the writing is never dull; the melody wings its way onwards, and for a glorious minute or so you can be flying over the rooftops, your spirits lifted. The opening melody returns to round off the piece and you sense in the pupil the confidence that familiarity brings. Immediately the pupil’s playing is more assured, expressive, even playing around with tempo and the placing of the notes. 

I think it was the singable melody that piqued my curiosity, and made me want to know more about Chaminade’s music. The piece I found first was her Serenade Op. 29, written in 1884. After listening to this you can see why Chaminade’s music has been described as charming. The opening melody is gentle, almost like a lullaby, and is supported by pleasing harmonies in the accompaniment. The second melody has a similar rhythmic pattern and is more searching but still holds a tender quality. They are both such beautiful melodies that the whole piece really works. Both tunes use similar rhythmic patterns and accompaniments, but it’s the subtle melodic development as well as changes in articulation that keeps this piece interesting. The music finally fades away to ppp and a tonic chord, dusk having fallen and the musicians taking their leave. 

The next work of Chaminade’s I listened to, which really threatened to take the attached description of ‘charming’ and hurl it out of the window, was her Arabesque No 1, Op. 6, from 1892. It’s a tempestuous piece, technically much more difficult than the Serenade. Chaminade was a pianist, studying with teachers from the Paris Conservatoire, and later performing her works in Europe and the United States. I can imagine her sitting at the keyboard, absorbed in her music, taking the audience with her on a journey through delicate flourishes and big chords, carried along by a melody that is seeped in the Romanticism of her Russian and German contemporaries. 

Her Caprice-Impromptu, despite being one of her later works, written in 1914, is also decidedly Romantic. Chaminade, like her near contemporary Rachmaninov, remained broadly consistent in her style whilst many composers around her responded to new influences. Indeed, the Caprice-Impromptu has hints of Rachmaninov in its melodic writing. Like the Arabesque, there’s a sense of urgency and although the first section is playful as the title of the piece suggests, the melody that follows in the second section is at once both yearning and lyrical. Chromatic scales in octaves add to the sense of drama and the composer makes full use of the expressive range of the piano; the music ranges from fortissimo to piano and dolce. 

Chaminade’s music is characterized by its melodic writing and chromaticism; it’s Romantic, yes, accessible, maybe, but no less interesting for that. Chaminade was a prolific composer and her piano works are both imaginative and musically satisfying. I can’t wait to discover more. 

 

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“Schubert’s music is the most human that I know.” – Sir András Schiff, pianist

“I will never quite have the words to express what Schubert’s music has meant to me…and I will never stop looking for them. His ability to convey loneliness — and console in its wake — is perhaps his most ineffable quality…” – Jonathan Biss, pianist

Image credit Hadi Karimi

Schubert’s music provides the bridge between the classical and romantic eras. Yet his music was not well known during his lifetime outside of Schubert’s own intimate circle of friends. His piano music was largely neglected right up to the early part of the 20th century when it was given the attention it deserved by pianists such as Artur Schnabel, who can be partly credited for introducing it into the regular concert repertoire with pieces such as the late piano sonatas, the two sets of Impromptus, the Moments Musicaux, and the “Wanderer fantasie”. Today, these works are staples of the pianist’s repertoire, much loved by performers and audiences alike.

Schubert’s musical sensibilities and invention were inspired by the human voice – he wrote over 600 songs – and lyrical melody and long-spung cantabile lines are distinctive elements of all his music.

For the pianist, his music remains an interpretational challenge and the best Schubert players have absorbed the essentials from his songs and chamber music. Because of his proximity, and admiration for Beethoven, there is a tendency among some players to approach his music like Beethoven’s; but Schubert is a composer who speaks more quietly and introspectively, even in his more declamatory moments. The skill in playing his music well is a sensitivity to these aspects without sentimentality.

British pianist Clifford Curzon (1907-1982) had a special affinity for Schubert, fostered by his studies with Artur Schnabel. His performance of Schubert’s last sonata, the D960 in B-flat, is considered by many to be one of the greatest performances ever. In this recording, his concentration and nervous intensity are so palpable it is almost like eavesdropping.

Clifford Curzon Plays Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat major, D.960

A protégé of the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, himself a fine Schubert player, Russian pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja is noted for her performances and recordings of Schubert’s piano music. As an artist, she is unfailingly intelligent, tasteful and musical, whose performances display great refinement, romantic fervour, delicacy, and power, all underpinned by commanding technique.

Franz Schubert: Fantasy in C Major, Op. 15, D. 760, “Wandererfantasie” – Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo (Elisabeth Leonskaja, piano)

No appraisal of Schubert pianists would be complete with András Schiff, who really honours every work, and who has recorded the piano music on Schubert-era instruments, offering listeners an intriguing insight into the range of colours and nuances afforded by Schubert’s writing. Always fastidious in his close attention to the details of the score, Schiff really gets to the heart, soul, and fundamental humanity of Schubert in his playing and brings a compelling intimacy to his performances, even in the largest of concert halls.

The great Romanian pianist Radu Lupu, who died in April 2022, was described by Gramophone magazine as “A lyricist in a thousand”, who placed Schubert’s music at the centre of his repertoire throughout his career. Sensitive to Schubert’s mercurial moods, his playing demonstrates immense control, subtlety of shading and dynamic nuance, an almost ethereal luminosity of sound, and a myriad range of colours which fully reveals Schubert’s inventiveness and imagination, the rich seam of his ideas, and his forward vision.

Like András Schiff, Mitsuko Uchida has an unerring ability to bring an intimacy and sense of a conversation to her performances of Schubert’s music, and she does so with clarity, commitment, and a clear sense of the narrative line, the lightness and lyricism, and also the roughness in his music. Uchida is very alert to Schubert’s idiosyncrasies, his chiaruscuro and elusive, shifting moods: beauty and delicacy, poignancy and loneliness abound in her performances of this composer whose music has been a lifelong presence for her.

Other fine Schubert players to explore include Shura Cherkassy, Rudolf Firkusny, Walter Gieseking, Rudolf Serkin, Wilhelm Kempf, Paul Lewis, Maria João Pires, Alexander Lonquich, Imogen Cooper, Krystian Zimerman, Murray Perahia, and of course Alfred Brendel. Of the younger generation, recent discoveries include Inon Barnatan, Yehuda Inbar, Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy

An earlier version of this article appeared on the InterludeHK website

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Unearthed manuscripts reveal a new side of the eccentric French composer, brought to life by pianist Alexandre Tharaud in a recording of previously unheard works

A century after the death of Erik Satie, 27 never-before heard works are released to the public for the first time. The landmark digital album, Satie: Discoveries, performed by acclaimed pianist Alexandre Tharaud, is now available on Erato, just days ahead of the centenary of Satie’s death on 1 July 1925.

Erik Satie

The collection sheds new light on one of music’s most enigmatic figures. Reconstructed from forgotten manuscripts and unfinished sketches, these pieces, ranging from playful cabaret songs to minimalist nocturnes, were originally written by Satie for performance in the bohemian cafés of Montmartre, where he worked as a pianist in the late nineteenth century.

The album is the result of painstaking musicological research by Sato Matsui, a Japanese composer and violinist, and James Nye, a British musicologist and composer. The duo independently tracked down lost materials in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and a private archive in Boston, piecing together and reconstructing Satie’s sketches into fully performable scores. Some of these are to be published by Éditions de la Fabrique Musique.

Among the newly discovered gems are pieces in the same free, minimalist style of Satie’s Gymnopedies and Gnossiennes (for example, Réflexions nocturnes and Autour du 1st Nocturne). Other works draw on familiar dance styles, (including several Parisian Valses), the café-concert song and operetta arias (‘Le Champagne’, ‘Pousse l’amour’ and ‘Chanson andalouse’).

Further pieces reveal a more experimental Satie, such as the Esquisses bitonales (Bitonal Sketches) or the Soupirs fanés (Faded Sighs), a collection of miniatures with evocative titles such as ‘Poil’ (Hair), ‘Barbouillage’ (Daubings), ‘Familial désespoir’ (Domestic Despair) and ‘Souvenirs fadasses (Dusty Memories).

Though most of the tracks feature pianist Alexandre Tharaud performing solo, three also feature the acclaimed Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulović. Radulović’s violin takes on the role of the singer in a mélodie and two cabaret songs where the lyrics are now lost. 

In addition to these 27 world-premiere recordings, two already familiar pieces are included: the hypnotic ‘Chinese Conjuror’ from the ballet Parade, for piano four hands with Gautier Capuçon, and the ‘Chanson andalouse’, originally intended for the never-performed operetta Pousse l’amour. The ‘Cancan Grand-Mondain’ (High-Society Cancan) from La Belle Excentrique is recorded here in a new version for solo piano by Tharaud himself.

Alexandre Tharaud said of the album: “Satie remains very much an enigmatic figure today, held in enormous regard at the same time as being largely misunderstood and almost unknown…it is up to us to look beyond the Gnosiennes and the Gymnopédies, to try our sincere best to get closer to the music and to pay real attention.”

 

Satie: Discoveries is out now on Erato on all streaming services

Source: press release

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When the first notes of Chopin sound through the concert hall there is a happy sign of recognition. All over the world men and women know his music. They love it. They are moved by it. When I play Chopin I know I speak directly to the hearts of people.

Arthur Rubinstein

Virtuosic, imaginative, and emotionally profound, Chopin’s music offers pianists a wealth of expressivity, requiring a combination of superior technique, which always serves the music (rather than as an end in itself), refined touch, a beautiful cantabile (singing) tone, highly nuanced dynamic shading, supple phrasing and rubato, and an appreciation of the interior architecture of this multi-layered music. Chopin is also symbolic of Poland, the country of his birth, whose musical idioms are evident in almost all his music, most obviously, the Mazurkas and Polonaises.

When asked, the great Chopin player Arthur Rubinstein could not explain why Chopin’s music spoke to him, but like the music of J.S. Bach (which Chopin greatly admired and studied), it expresses universal humanity which, combined with a certain vulnerability, speaks to so many of us, and on many different levels.

An unrivalled authority and one of the greatest interpreters of the music of Chopin, Rubinstein brought great dignity and refinement to the music, avoided unnecessary mannerisms and sentimentality, and revealed the structural logic of Chopin’s writing. His playing is memorable for its elegant vocal phrasing, beauty of tone, and natural yet sophisticated shaping.

Arthur Rubinstein Plays Chopin’s Polonaise in A Flat Major, Op.53

“A master of the keyboard” (Harold C Schonberg), Dinu Lipatti was the pupil of an older Chopin master, Alfred Cortot.

Lipatti’s immaculate performances of the waltzes, in particular, are spontaneous, light and nimble, lyrical and suitably dancing, with subtle rubato and great charm.

“It’s very inner music and very deep,” Maria João Pires has said of Chopin. For her, he is “the deep poet of music”. That depth is really evident in Pires’ playing of the Nocturnes: intimate, refined and passionate, her interpretations eschew drawing room night-time sentimentality and capture all the drama and emotional intensity of these much-loved pieces.

Described by one critic as “the greatest Chopin player to have emerged from Italy since the Second World War”, Maurizio Pollini’s association with Chopin goes right back to the beginning of his professional career when he won the Chopin Competition in Warsaw when he was just 18. His unsentimental, cultivated interpretations are notable for their clarity of expression, perfectly judged poetry, and close attention to the bel canto melodic lines which make Chopin’s music so immediately appealing.

Alfred Cortot is one of the most celebrated Chopin interpreters, combining flawless technique with a deep appreciation of the structure, voicing, and textures of Chopin’s music. His recordings are acclaimed to this day, and his detailed, annotated editions of Chopin’s music remain highly prized among pianists and teachers.

Hailed by her mentor Arthur Rubinstein as “a born Chopin interpreter”, Polish-Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska captures the soul of Chopin, in particular in her performances of the Mazurkas, works which reveal Chopin’s patriotism and innermost sentiments towards his homeland. Fialkowska is sensitive to both the humble, peasant origins of the Mazurka and Chopin’s elevation of the genre into concert pieces. She really captures the poetry, poignancy, and whimsical emotions of these Polish folk dances, and her rubato is perfectly judged, especially important in these pieces where suppleness of pace lends greater emphasis to the emotional depth of the music.

An earlier version of this article appeared on the InterludeHK website

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This site is free to access and ad-free, and takes many hours to research, write, and maintain. If you find joy and value in what I do, why not

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