The exceptionally gifted German pianist Alexander Lonquich with a recital disc dedicated to French piano music of the late 19th and early 20th century.
The lyricism of Fauré – one of the most enduring popular of French composers – is revealed in his Five Impromptus), which Lonquich scatters like jewels through his album. Ravel’s “Gaspard de la nuit” is intensely romantic and a virtuosic tour-de-force. And the Eight Preludes (1929) comprised Olivier Messiaen’s first published work – inspired by the atmospheres of Debussy, but already full of the transcendent sensitivity to sound-colour that was to make Messiaen the most outstanding composer of his generation. Lonquich gives insight into the characters of the three composers but also, in contrasting them, shows the continuity of the experimental impulse in French music, which has so often accompanied its songful qualities.
Plainte Calme
Alexander Lonquich
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04:57 - Huit Préludes pour piano
- 2La colombe02:02
- 3Chant d'extase dans un paysage triste06:45
- 4Le nombre léger01:39
- 5Instants défunts04:40
- 6Les sons impalpables du rêve03:16
- 7Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu08:35
- 8Plainte calme03:21
- 9Un reflet dans le vent04:59
- 10Impromtu Mi bémol majeur op. 25
04:00 - 11Impromtu Re bémol majeur op. 91
04:39 - 12Impromtu Fa mineur op. 31
03:45 - Gaspard de la Nuit
- 13I. Ondine06:40
- 14II. Le Gibet07:26
- 15III. Scarbo09:31
- 16Impromptu Fa dièse mineur op. 102
02:09
Gabriel Fauré wrote his five impromptus over a period of more than a quarter-century (between 1882 and 1909) and accordingly Lonquich treats them as autonomous pieces rather than a set, threading them, jewel-like, throughout the recital. As Jessica Duchen points out in the CD booklet, despite his reputation as a choirmaster and church organist, Fauré was at heart a pianist, and an uncommonly gifted one: “He was ambidextrous, and his piano writing filled with subtle tricks of voicing, intertwining polyphonic lines and melodies set in the centre of the piano, divided between the hands, often confirms this.” While the influence of Chopin and Saint-Saens is marked in the early impromptus, by the third, Faurè’s songwriting gifts are in full flower, and the fourth “unfolds with a dizzying range of harmonic and rhythmic intricacies”. The fifth impromptu is an instance of Faurè’s increasingly exploratory late style.
Maurice Ravel was one of Fauré’s composition students at the Paris Conservatoire, although his 1908 work “Gaspard de la nuit” owes its inspirations to other sources. Ravel‘s goal was to write a pianistic tour-de-force that would top Balakirev’s then-popular “oriental fantasy” “Islamey”, and to challenge the playing capacities of his good friend Ricardo Viñes, the Spanish pianist who was also an important advocate for Debussy’s work.
Messiaen’s Préludes are in places equally challenging, “Les sons impalpable du rêve” for instance “presents the pianist with no fewer than 56 changes of meter in 74 bars”, while the synaesthetic notes in the margin point to the future, with the composer calling for “blue-orange mode with ostinato in chords cascaded on a violet-blue mode treated like a brassy gong”. The last of the Préludes, “Un reflet dans le vent” is “a signpost toward the music Messiaen was to write for Yvonne Loriod, including the ‘Catalogue d’Oiseaux’ and ‘Vingts Regards sur l’enfant Jésus’ - among the greatest works for piano composed in the 20th century.”
YEAR | DATE | VENUE | LOCATION | |
2026 | January 13 | Pierre Boulez Saal | Berlin, Germany |
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