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Ravel: Piano Concerto, Debussy, Massenet - Bavouzet, Tortelier

Ravel: Piano Concerto, Debussy, Massenet - Bavouzet, Tortelier

Chandos  CHSA 5084

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Orchestral


Ravel: Piano Concerto in G, Debussy: Fantaisie, Massenet: Deux Impromptus, Toccata, Deux Pieces pour piano, Valse folle

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Yan Pascal Tortelier (conductor)


The exclusive Chandos artist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is a master of this repertoire. This is his second concerto recording for the label, after his survey of the complete piano concertos by Bartók (CHAN 10610) which was released in September to high acclaim and voted ‘Orchestral Choice of the Month’ by the magazine BBC Music. Bavouzet’s complete recording of the piano music by Debussy also scooped awards from BBC Music and Gramophone, which wrote: ‘This could well be the finest and most challenging of all Debussy piano cycles.’

On this new release, Bavouzet is accompanied by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Yan Pascal Tortelier, a conductor steeped in the French tradition and utterly at home in this repertoire. The result is a totally idiomatic performance of these French masterpieces for piano and orchestra.

Ravel’s light and brilliant Piano Concerto in G major is the intriguing result of a merging of classical models with the idioms and harmonies found in the popular jazz music of his day. At the time of composing this concerto, Ravel had just returned from his travels in the USA and the work is heavily influenced by the jazz music that he encountered there. However, in the second movement Mozart takes precedence, the piano’s theme closely modelled on the slow movement of his Clarinet Quintet; and Saint-Saëns’s sparkling semi-quavers fill the finale. The first performance of this work, given by Marguerite Long in Paris, was a great success, as was the European tour that followed. Another central piece is Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. The work was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, a concert pianist who had lost his right arm during the First World War. Although at first Wittgenstein did not take to its jazz-influenced rhythms and harmonies, he grew to like the piece. Speaking of the Concerto, Ravel said that he had been determined to make it sound ‘no thinner’ than one for both hands and noted that in the middle of the piece ‘innumerable rhythmic patterns are introduced which become increasingly compact’ and that ‘this pulsation increases in intensity and frequency’ before the various elements ‘contend with one another until they are brusquely interrupted by a brutal conclusion’.

Also featured on this disc is Debussy’s Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra. Debussy was a highly self-critical composer and disowned or withdrew several of his early works; this piece was one of them. It was composed in 1889 – 90, and its premiere was scheduled, under Vincent d’Indy, almost as soon as the score was completed, but withdrawn by Debussy just as it was being put into rehearsal. The first performance did not take place until after Debussy’s death in 1918. Although the Fantaisie is the lone piano concerto by a composer regarded as one of the greatest among those who wrote for the piano, it remains one of Debussy’s least frequently performed works even now. The work shows the influences of Fauré and Franck, and the piano does not figure as a solo instrument in the conventional concerto sense but rather as an equal partner with the orchestra, although the conventional three movements are still present.

Completing the disc in a unique manner are six pieces for solo piano by Massenet. Most famous for his operas and suites for orchestra, Massenet wrote a quantity of very charming piano pieces, of which Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has selected some of the best. The music is typical of its composer – highly tuneful, richly textured, and utterly compelling – and conjures an atmosphere which only a Frenchman could achieve.

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Review by John Broggio - October 26, 2010

A thrilling disc of French concertos from Debussy & Ravel and wonderful make-weights from Massenet.

Opening with Debussy's Fantasie, a work of relative youth (he was 27-28 at the time of composition), it had an ill-fated start thanks to lack of rehearsal time and Debussy withdrew it before it could be premièred; it was not until 1919, after his death, that the world finally became aware of the piece at the hands of Alfred Cortot. Unlike many concertos, this very much a dialogue not a masculine competition in which the soloist attempts to tame the orchestra. Add in its cyclical compositional form and one gets closer to Franck than Saint-Seans. It is thoroughly beautiful to listen to and the performers are very evocative of the French sound world (not something a UK orchestra is usually praised for!) and all are clearly of the same mind about how to play this work.

The main excitement must surely be reserved for the Ravel concerto's; SACD has been lacking a first rate account of both these works (although Ravel: Piano Concerto, La Valse - Argerich, Bertini is a wonderful performance, the sound is somewhat dated and artificially created MCH) but we have them now! In the G major concerto, with tempo choices that are faster than norm, at first one fears for the health of Ravel's semi-quavers but these alarms are not necessary because Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is fully in command of his fingers and manages to dispatch the most complex figures with wonderful lightness and sensitivity. Alison Teale is rightly credited for her tender cor anglais solo but this leads one to wonder why the cellist in the Debussy wasn't similarly given a nod! The conception is so at one, it is a joy to behold and it comes as no surprise to learn that Bavouzet and Tortelier shared their piano teacher. Similar qualities are also immediately apparent in the concerto for left hand and this easily surpasses the version from Gershwin: An American in Paris, Rhapsody in Blue, Ravel - Pascal Rogé in both performance and couplings.

Closing the disc is a small foray into the (usually unheard) piano world of Massenet - whilst not perhaps the finest music ever, one can easily hear how his work influenced more famous compositions of Ravel. Bavouzet plays them with a sophistication that they don't necessarily deserve and you can't ask for more than that.

This is perhaps the finest sound from Chandos to date; it is lifelike in a way that normally is avoided in an effort to obtain - an admittedly flattering - bloom which is mercifully absent here. One hears so much more detail in the orchestral parts in the Ravel than ever before but without the slightest hint of spot-miking; bravo to the engineering team!

Highly recommended.

Copyright © 2010 John Broggio and HRAudio.net

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