Dukas: Complete piano music. Chantal Stigliani – Naxos 8.557053 (75 minutes).
Born in Paris on October 1, 1865, Paul Dukas is a composer whose rigorous self-criticism deprived the musical world of many fine compositions. He was such a perfectionist that he judged many of the pieces he wrote as unacceptable for public performance, so he either burnt them or tore them up. The result was that by the time of his death on May 17, 1935, only a small catalogue of works survived.
These include one symphony, one opera, Ariane et Barbe-bleue, one overture, Polyencte, a mini-ballet, La Peri, and the immortal L’apprenti sorcier, his only orchestral work that enjoys the constant favour of conductors worldwide.
This excessive self-censorship explains why his piano repertoire numbers only a meagre four compositions, which are grouped together on this disc. All were inspired by or dedicated to great composers, namely Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Rameau and Haydn, but the most outstanding composition is undoubtedly the Piano Sonata in E Flat, a monumental 45-minute piece in four movements.
Acknowledged as one of the greatest 20th century piano works, it is overflowing with original ideas and inspirational tunes. The piano writing presents huge technical difficulties, and all throughout the work, the tension is unrelenting. Nothing is superfluous here, every note is significant.
The Rameau Variations is also a substantial creation, and though there is much to admire, it has nothing of the grandeur we find in the sonata. The remaining two pieces are elegiac miniatures, both with a nostalgic sadness.
The French pianist Chantal Stigliani captures Dukas’s spirit of perfection with uncanny ability; indeed all challenges presented by the composer are dispatched with virtuosic abandon and aplomb. A first-rate disc that focuses on some obscure works by a famous composer.
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 in C Minor. Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ladislav Slovak – Naxos 8.550625 (65 minutes).
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) began this symphony during a state-sponsored tour of Turkey in September 1935. Following Pravda’s condemnation (at Stalin’s instigation) of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the composer was not only wounded in the spirit, but he was also being considered as a traitor of the political and aesthetic creed, and this meant probable deportation or death.
It was only a cooling-down period of some weeks and the timely intervention of an influential patron that spurned the composer to resume work, completing the symphony in April 1936. The orchestration was finished a month later.
The work was accepted for performance by the Leningrad Philharmonic, but after several unsuccessful rehearsals and further harassing from the Soviet regime, the symphony was withdrawn and the manuscript put aside.
Following the disappearance of the score during the war, Shostakovich made a two-piano version from his own sketches, but the original was eventually reconstructed from the surviving orchestral parts and was first performed in December 1960. By then the composer had been totally rehabilitated by the Soviet State, and considered one of its greatest artistic sons.
The symphony is very much a work of its time and is conceived as a grandiose piece both in scope and structure. Massively orchestrated, it comprises two very large outer movements separated by a rather sedate Moderato.
The music is not easy to digest, as the fragmented classical form and the many passages of immense tension tax the ear heavily. Still, one must keep in mind that this symphony was not composed for entertainment, but to draw the world’s attention to the repression by a nation’s monstrous regime.
Slovak and his orchestra perform with an impassioned zeal that clearly testifies to their ongoing pain at the hands of the same task masters. Highly recommended.
Dornel: La Triomphante, chamber music for recorders, flute and continuo, Passacaglia – Naxos 8.570986 (74 minutes).
Louis-Antoine Dornel is certainly not a household name. Sadly, little biographical information is available regarding this Parisian organist and composer of the 17th and 18th centuries. His date of birth can be established at around 1680, though his birthplace remains unknown.
Dornel’s death is also shrouded in mystery, but from a 1780 essay by La Borde, his death is reported to have happened 25 years earlier, placing it at around the second half of the 1750s.
It is possible that he was a pupil of the celebrated organist Nicolas Lebegue, and by 1706 he obtained a post as organist at Sainte-Madeleine-en-la-Cité, following a competition with Jean-Philippe Rameau, who had been unable to force the church authorities to accept his terms.
Dornel occupied other prestigious positions such as that of main organist at l’Abbaye Ste-Genevieve and Maitre de la Musique at the French Academy, a post he held from 1725 to 1742, which also afforded him opportunities to compose motets for choir and orchestra which were performed at Paris’s pioneering public concerts, the Concerts Spirituel.
Several contemporaries speak highly of Dornel, and his imaginative and dynamic style was perfectly suited to the lively and ever-evolving musical environment of Paris in the first half of the 18th century.
The works on this disc, which are only a few of the ones that have survived, testify to an ingenious and imaginative composer always eager to try out the latest musical innovations of his age. Graceful, serene and consistently appealing, the music never outstays its presence and leaves the listener craving for more.
Passacaglia, one of Britain’s best-loved baroque chamber ensembles, is on fine form, and performances are precise, vigorous and virtuosic. A lovely disc that should appeal to many.
These CDs were made available for review by D’Amato Record Shop of 98/99, St John Street, Valletta.