Solo piano music of Robert Casadesus / Guy Sacre
Rugby
the solo piano
music of the eminent French pianist Robert Casadesus.
The liner notes give no info on Owings, who seems to give an excellent
and commited
reading here.He also as a website,next.
I direct you here where it seems 4 full selections can be heard free :
www.johnowings.com/disc.html
Of particular note are the 24 Preludes from 1924. While instantly
recognizable
as French,it is nonetheless remarkable how original and fresh they
sound in 2009
and how personal to the composer despite all the many influences of
20's
Paris, less "Impressionistic" for example than Ravel,more reserved
than Poulenc.These are
pieces of elegance, sophistication, at time "tres lent", at times
"tres vif", at
times haunting, at times evoking Paris at dusk, at times simple
virtuosic fun, always with elan, often
bringing to mind the nostalgia and autumnal colorations of the late
solo piano works of Brahms,although Casadesus' lean , transparent
writing, evoking some of the same sound world as Debussy's "En Blanc
et Noir", quite different from Brahms.
#20 "Lent et Grave" is a 4:24 masterpiece,although several are less
than or just over 1 minute. These do not, and are not intended to,
compete with prelude sets
of Chopin,or Rachmaninoff, or Bach,in style and substance more similar
to
Prokofieff's "Visions Fugitives". However, Casadesus' effort here are
works that
should be heard, that the many young French pianists today, mentioned
in this ng , should be
playing,pieces I'll listen to often. Also in the cd are his very
effective, light-hearted 1946 "Toccata"
dedicated to his son Jean,who died in an accident in 1976, just after
his
Father's death in 1972 ; and his 1968 Op.67 "Impromptu" to the memory
of Lipatti.These 2 pieces and 2 of the Preludes are at owings site
above.
While here, I would also reccomend the 24 Preludes for solo piano of
the French
composer Guy Sacre, born 1948,still living I think, an ADDA cd with
the
wonderful French pianist, Billy Eidi. While more "modern" ,less
lyrical, more
terse than the Casadesus set, more kaleidoscopic in effect,nonetheless
sharing
many of the same qualities. A youngster could easily fit both sets on
a
programme, not yet another Debussy Prelude set.
At the risk of offending Gerard again, here is my one live experience
with the Casadesus family,which memory perhaps biases my review above:
November 24, 1967, with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting the then
Minneapolis
Symphony in Minneapolis :
Bach Concerto No. 2 in C major for Two Claviers & String
Orchestra
(Robert,Gaby)
Casadesus Concerto for Three Pianos & Strings Orchestra (Robert,Gaby,
Jean)
Mozart Concerto in F major for Three Pianos & Orchestra (same)
Grieg Selections from Peer Gynt
Regards, Rugby
Rugby
A review from the French publication "Classica" at Owings' site :
"But John Owings goes even further in the Twenty-Four Préludes, the
Six Enfantines, the Impromptu op.67 #4 and the Toccata op 40. If he
knows how to be vigorous and aggressive in the Toccata, he also
demonstrates remarkable poetry and subtlety in the Twenty-four
Préludes and the Six Enfantines. Although they were the work of a
young artist, the Préludes are real jewels of fantasy and poetry,
kaleidoscopic miniatures of variegated moods and colors. In those
early works, you can already find all the composer’s themes, which are
so well adapted to the principles of cycles of small pieces. The
absence of development and melodic verve is no longer an issue here.
Under John Owings’s fingers, with his round and warm sound, energetic
and gentle, this cycle unquestionably stands out as one of the very
few masterpieces of post-Ravelian French piano music. Here, the
pianist exhibits nothing but qualities: apart from those mentioned
above, the articulation is excellent and precise and the use of the
pedal is a perfection of subtlety and precision. Perhaps adding a
touch of wildness in some of the preludes would be welcome. But after
the Twenty-Four Préludes, the Six Enfantines ultimately wins over the
listener. So, in the end, should you own only one disk of Casadesus
the composer, let it be this one."