Volume 25 Issue 3 - November 2019

Keyed In
Les sons et les parfums
Janina Fialkowska
ATMA ACD2 2766 (naxosdirect.com)
!!
Janina Fialkowska’s latest offering
is absolutely enchanting, a CD of “pure
nostalgia” for the acclaimed Canadian
pianist, as she states in her eloquent liner
notes for Les sons et les parfums (the sounds
and the fragrances).
Fialkowska transports us to the Paris of
the 1950s and 1960s, when, as a youth, she
visited the French capital; a time when Les
Six members Francis Poulenc and Germaine
Tailleferre were dominant forces on the French music scene. And, as
Fialkowska tells us, a time when most of the older musicians with
whom she came in contact during those visits, knew not only those
noted composers, but also Ravel, Debussy and Fauré. One further
fun fact: her piano teacher in Paris in the mid-60s, Yvonne Lefébure,
actually worked on the two Ravel pieces featured on the CD with
Ravel himself! Can anyone imagine a headier environment for one’s
musical studies?
Fialkowska’s “love letter to Paris” includes works by all of the
above-mentioned composers, as well as Emmanuel Chabrier. From
Tailleferre’s charming and shimmery Impromptu, Fauré’s sensuously
evocative Nocturne in E-flat Major Op.36, and Poulenc’s sparkling
Intermezzo in A-flat Major FP118 with its sense of yearning, to
Debussy’s beloved and beyond-beautiful Clair de Lune and the stunning,
virtuosic and impressionistic pleasures of Ravel’s Jeux d’eau
and Sonatine, Fialkowska indeed captures les sons et les parfums
of a bygone Paris. It is there in the characteristic nuance, warmth,
commanding musicianship, delight and dignity of her performance,
which is nothing short of ravishing.
Sharna Searle
Chopin – Ballades & Impromptus
Charles Richard-Hamelin
Analekta AN 2 9145 (analekta.com)
!!
The quietly heroic Canadian pianist,
Charles Richard-Hamelin, has just released
a record – his fifth on the Analekta label
– of Frédéric Chopin’s most expressive
and inspired music: the four Ballades,
(presented in chronological order) and
the three Impromptus, followed by the
Fantaisie-Impromptu.
Audiences the world over have heartened
to Richard-Hamelin’s extraordinary talent, a talent without
self-indulgence, wholly in service of musical candour on the highest
order. It is this very quality, (amongst flawless technique, lyrical sensitivity,
inspired voicing and impeccable stylistic command), that
makes Richard-Hamelin so unique in today’s individualistic, egocrazed
culture. The pianist brings a poetic integrity to his musicmaking,
born of a sincerity that is both reassuring and human. His
craft calls on the objective – not the subjective – to aid him in his
quest for beauty, awakening virtue and aesthetic perfection at every
musical turn.
In these hands, not one of Chopin’s phrases, chords or moments of
pause are left unconsidered or unloved. Richard-Hamelin intimately
knows every last fibre of the musical canvas, from first note to last;
a marvel of integral conception. It is like watching a skilled and
seasoned painter in action, as he places every brush stroke – every
swirl and point – with absolute care and expertise. Richard-Hamelin
is redesigning this loved (and oft-performed) music, entirely afresh.
Each cherished musical moment is revealed to be uniformly exquisite,
and the listener is spellbound. Charles Richard-Hamelin is an artist of
this rare Earth, singing of its myriad wonders.
Adam Sherkin
Tchaikovsky – Piano Concerto No.1; Prokofiev – Piano Concerto
No.2
Haochen Zhang; Lahti Symphony Orchestra; Dima Slobodeniouk
BIS BIS-2381 SACD (bis.se)
!!
At just 29 years old, Chinese pianist
Haochen Zhang ably demonstrates his coupling
of a virtuoso approach with a mature
and nuanced sensitivity of musical interpretation
on this 2019 BIS recording,
featuring the Lahti Symphony Orchestra
under the measured direction of Dima
Slobodeniouk. Traversing two alpine works
– Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto
No.1 and Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.2 – Zhang evidences
considerable musical acumen in his handling of this well-known
(and widely recorded and performed) music of these Russian masters,
highlighting the embedded Romantic gestures, as well as rising to
the stentorian musical challenges put forward by these mighty and
canonical composers.
Dynamics are clearly on display as the pianist takes the listener on
a wild ride. This 19th- and 20th-century music is both rigorous and
demanding on pianists (Prokofiev was himself a touring and creative
pianist), and Zhang, a former child prodigy who won the 2009
Cliburn Competition, demonstrates that he still has the breathtaking
and wide-ranging technique that initially captured audience attention
when he was still a boy. But now he evidences a coalescing musical
maturity that is bound to excite today’s classical musical listeners not
only for what is captured here, but also for what is in store for Zhang
on future recordings and concertizing opportunities. Overall, a recommended
addition to one’s CD collection.
Andrew Scott
Beethoven – Piano Sonatas Nos.8, 21, 23
Jae-Hyuck Cho
Sony S803556 (jaehyuckcho.com/recording)
! ! Pianist Jae-Hyuck Cho is a well-established
international recitalist and a classical
music radio presenter in Korea. This
CD of three much-recorded Beethoven
sonatas – the C minor “Pathétique,” C Major
“Waldstein” and F minor “Appassionata” –
is justified by its excellent playing and sound
engineering. In the Pathétique Cho’s tonal
control is exceptional, from the introduction’s
sonorities onwards, featuring finely
graded crescendos. In the Adagio, expression is fine and intimate,
while the Rondo builds and does not overwhelm. No banging in this
Beethoven, or in the following Waldstein Sonata. Here, with melody
mostly reduced to brief motifs in the first movement, a wealth of
harmonic interest, plus the raw energy of pulses and tremolando
chords, carry the movement forward. Cho achieves this task, and then
shows an atmospheric side to his playing in the heartfelt introduction
to the Rondo. Adhering mostly to Beethoven’s blurring pedal markings
and extended trills, raising the contrast level through effective
accentuation in the episodes, and managing the coda’s octave glissandos
well, the end result is stellar.
The Appassionata Sonata is a little overwhelming in Cho`s
78 | November 2019 thewholenote.com