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Brahms Sonatas for Cello and Piano
Dyachkov/Saulnier
Analekta FL 2 3167
Lessard: Brahms wrote very few cello
sonatas — just six by my count — but
all of them deserve our admiration.
You’ll find three of them on this disc,
masterpieces that unveil the composer’s
tender romantic side, played here by two
talented artists: cellist Yegor Dyachkov
and pianist Jean Saulnier.
The sound is so good that the timbres
of both the cello and the piano are perfectly
reproduced, and you discover with
delight the very close rapport between
these two musicians. Saulnier plays with
precision and fluidity, and is always
expressive. The velvet smoothness of
Dyachkov’s cello, due in equal parts
to technical skill and expressiveness, is
remarkable. An hour of pure delight!
Add this CD to your collection, and
I think you’ll agree. The more often you
listen, the more it will win you over.
Premiere Evening
Lowell Graham & American Promenade
Orch.
Klavier KCD 11053
Lessard: On this disc are composers and
works filled with elements that promise
the greatest auditory pleasure. It opens
with an unfinished piece by Carl Maria
von Weber, completed many years later
by no less a luminary than Mahler. It
is titled Die Drei Pintos (The Three
Pintos), and this is its premiere recording.
Its melodic lines, of great beauty, are
interpreted masterfully under Graham’s
baton.
Much better known is the overture
to Otto Nicolaï’s The Merry Wives of
Windsor, which is absolutely charming,
full of life and irresistible. It begins in
promising fashion, with a breathtaking
melody played by rich, silken strings. But
then the perfect moment is shattered by
the arrival of the tympani, played with
no discernment, and bordering on rage.
It continues in that fashion, and even
becomes worse in the celebrated waltz
halfway through the overture. Is it the
conductor’s fault? Is the percussion
simply exaggerated by the recording? I
know only that the result is disastrous.
On the other hand, Édouard Lalo’s
Arlequin, Musique de Carnaval, another
premiere recording, will enchant you.
The strings are joined by an intriguing
and mischievous flute that will draw you
right in. There’s a lovely waltz in there
too, but then it’s all over, a scant three
minutes later.
The CD ends with Giovanni Battista
Viotti’s Violin Concerto No. 22, in which
the orchestra is joined by soloist Fiorella
Sommer-Link. She has a good violin, the
Kreutzer, the product of Stradivari’s best
period, but once again something has
gone wrong. The violin sounds thin and
shrill, with the orchestra overpowering
it in the tuttis.
I played this CD several times, I can’t
tell you how many times, but my conclusion
remained the same. In most of the
pieces this normally excellent conductor
has too heavy a hand. I’m not happy
about this, my first negative review of
a Klavier recording. Of course, reviewing
is always a subjective enterprise, and
perhaps you’ll like it better than I did.
Carmin
Bïa
Audiogram ADCD10163
Rejskind: When I mention this new
recording from the wonderful Brazilian-French
singer, I’m asked the same
question: “Is it as good as the previous
two?”
By and large the answer is yes, and
it may be even better, but expect it to
be different. The first impression is
that there was more money available
this time. The lush graphics and the
photos, showing a barefooted and barelegged
Bïa lounging on a red overstuffed
chair on a hilltop, reflect the available
budget. So do the complex musical
arrangements. Is the recording quality
better? It is less intimate, certainly, and
by Reine Lessard
and Gerard Rejskind
Bïa’s textured voice is less forward, with
more natural sibilance. Yet she is not so
far back that we have to strain to make
out what she is singing. Pretty good.
Yet the accompaniment is solid, with
a bottom end that reaches to bedrock
when it needs to.
But mere recording quality is not
enough to justify a recommendation.
What about the music itself?
I found one disappointment, and
only one. The previous recordings
(titled respectively La mémoire du vent
and Sources) feature wonderful guitar
work by Bïa herself. This time she has
more musicians, and she lets them do
their work, concentrating on her singing.
I’m glad to report that the singing is as
mesmerizing as ever. Her voice is strong
but effortless, with plenty of texture but
no roughness. The rhythms are catching
to the point of obsession. The songs,
many of them composed by Bïa herself,
are often superb.
The one that gets the most radio play
is Lobo, which has one of those gorgeous
melodies that sticks in the mind (it’s in
Portuguese, with a French version on an
unannounced track at the end). The CD’s
qualities don’t end there, however. Try
to sit still during Mariana, with its rapid
Bossa Nova rhythm. A number of the
songs are sambas. An example is Je n’aime
pas, worth listening to for the words (in
French) as well as the music…but don’t
miss the final line of the text. In the more
languorous Helena she is accompanied by
the rich and sonorous cello of Emmanuel
Joussemet. There’s a lot of flute on this
album, played by Bïa’s longtime accompanist
Dominique Bouzon. On Dans mon
cœur Bouzon plays a gigantic flute called
an octobasse, which goes down to where
your speakers may or may not choose to
follow.
There’s really not a dull song on
the disc, but there are two I can’t avoid
singling out. One is Eu Vi (I saw), a Portuguese
translation by Bïa of a fine old
song by French Caribbean chansonnier
Henri Salvador. The other, which closes
the album, is titled Inti. It is a very old
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