Alexandre Tharaud plays Rameau
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CD Details
Edition: Music CDFormat: Import
CD Release Date: 2002-02-12
Music Label: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
Soundtracks:
- Suite en La: Allemande
- Suite en La: Courante
- Suite en La: Sarabande
- Suite en La: Les Trois Mains
- Suite en La: La Fanfarinette
- Suite en La: La Triomphante
- Suite en La: Gavotte
- Suite en La: 1er double de la Gavotte
- Suite en La: 2?me double
- Suite en La: 3?me double
- Suite en La: 4?me double
- Suite en La: 5?me double
- Suite en La: 6?me double
- Suite en Sol: Les Tricotets. Rondeau
- Suite en Sol: L'Indiff?rente
- Suite en Sol: Menuet - Deuxi?me menuet
- Suite en Sol: La Poule
- Suite en Sol: Les Triolets
- Suite en Sol: Les Sauvages
- Suite en Sol: L'Enharmonique
- Suite en Sol: L'?gyptienne
Music reviews of Alexandre Tharaud plays Rameau
Music Review: A worthy successor to Marcelle Meyer's historical recording
Rating: 5 Stars
As I remarked in my review of Alexandre Tharaud's recent Couperin recording (Alexandre Tharaud plays Couperin ~ tic, toc, choc), while Bach and Scarlatti have always been accepted territory for pianists (although up until the mid 1980s they sometimes felt the need to apologetically justify themselves for playing Bach - and playing it after Glenn Gould!), this hasn't been the case with Haendel, Rameau and Couperin, and I wonder why. Of course there were a few exceptions - there was a tradition in France for playing and recording those early French baroque composers, which goes back to Marcelle Meyer's seminal and glorious recordings of Couperin (1946) and especially Rameau (1953-5) (Les Introuvables De Marcelle Meyer vol. 2: Rameau, Couperin, Scarlatti, Rossini), and further back to Franck, Chabrier, Debussy and Ravel's rediscovery of and infatuation with this repertoire. Robert Casadesus (in 1952, Robert Casadesus: Rameau, Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn) and his son Jean (in 1954, Jean & Robert Casadesus - Ravel, Bach, Rameau, Couperin, Poulenc, Fran?aix, Tailleferre, R. Casadesus, D. Scarlatti), but also Emil Gilels (in concert in Moscow in 1960, on a Chant du Monde 2-CD set, nla), Gyorgy Cziffra (Les Rendez-vous de Senlis: Cziffra's recordings 1980-1986), Pierre Barbizet (not listed on this site. Asin B00008LOD1 on the French sister company) recorded only snippets. At the end of the 1970s and early 1980s the small French label FY published the complete keyboard output by Th?r?se Dussaut (only samples of it have been reissued on a single CD in the early 1990s, nla). These artists, and most notably Meyer, demonstrated how beautiful this music sounds on the piano, and how revelatory the instrument is. But all these remained that: exceptions, and for reasons that I don't really understand even Meyer's magnificent recordings failed to set a trend.
But maybe, now that every pianist seems keen on playing and recording Bach, their time with Rameau (and Couperin, and Haendel) has also come. Hopefully Tharaud is a beacon. His recording is a marvel and a model. He chose two contrasting suites, both from the Nouvelles Suites de Pi?ces de clavecin from 1728. Suite in A is mostly a collection of "abstract" numbers in the manner of the German suite - Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, while Suite in G is gathers those descriptive and evocative pieces so typical of Rameau and Couperin's genius, and contains one of Rameau's most famous compositions in the genre : "La Poule" (the Hen), cackles and all.
In the very interesting interview contained in the liner notes, Tharaud explains that he first set out to get as close as he could to Baroque style, drawing upon the advice of harpsichordists such as Olivier Beaumont. Then he tried to forget all about it in order to come back to his own instrument, as "you can't play Rameau on a piano the same way you play him on the harpsichord". In particular, he very convincingly contends that the ornamentation ("agrements" with the French word then used) cannot have the same function on harpsichord and piano. On the former, it is "to prolong the note, to characterize it, to emphasize the rhythms, sustain the harmony, to give the discourse a particular color" - all features that are conveyed by the richer timbre, harmonics and decay time of the piano. Not to conclude that he suppressed the ornamentation, on the contrary: his playing is strongly and marvelously evocative of the baroque style for the wealth of embellishments he applies. But he has lavished special care in extra-lightening their weight and texture. They add their own invading, delicate garland to the texture of the music.
Overall, despite his beautiful and tasteful work on ornamentation, I don't think Tharaud effaces the memory of Meyer - on the contrary, hearing her again against a reading nurtured on years of modern scholarship and practice only enhances one's admiration for how genuine and congenial her Rameau style was, ornamentation included. But Tharaud's sonics are of course vastly superior, as I said his ornamentation is a joy to hear, and in some individual numbers he does have an edge: in "Les Trois Mains" from Suite in A for instance, Tharaud proves more dynamic than Meyer, and more naturally flowing in Fanfarinette and Gavotte, slightly more sprightly in Les Tricotets from Suite in G, and as tender as Meyer in the first Menuet (at a slightly more flowing tempo) and Les Triolets.
It was a nice idea to add, as an encore, Debussy's Hommage ? Rameau, although, by Tharaud's own adminission, it smacks less of Rameau than of Debussy. Suite Bergamasque might have been more idiomatic. But anyway, though the TT of 63' isn't a bad deal, my only regret is that there isn't more Rameau on this CD. I'd love for Mr Tharaud to go back to his scores and give us the complete output.
Fact is, there has been of late a small trickle of CDs of Rameau played at the piano: in 1997 Jos? Eduardo Martins originally on the Belgian label Gents Muzikaal Archief, on this site on Northern Flowers (Rameau - L'euvre de Clavier - Jose Eduardo Martins (2 CD Set)), in 1998 Mordecai Sheori on Cembal d'Amor (Rameau: Pi?ces de Clavecin), and recently Tzimon Barto on Ondine (2005, A Basket of Wild Strawberries: A Selection of Keyboard Works by Jean-Philippe Rameau), Stephen Gutman on Toccata Classics (2006, Rameau: The Complete Keyboard Music, Vol. 1), and Angela Hewitt on Hyperion (2007 Rameau: Keyboard Suites). So maybe a trend has been set after all. Cross your fingers and touch wood, but for the time being, enjoy what's offered here.
General CDs
- Styles > Classical
- Chamber Music > General
- Featured Composers, A-Z > ( D ) > Debussy, Claude
- ( R ) > Rameau, Jean Philippe
- Forms & Genres > Suites
- Historical Periods > Baroque (c.1600-1750) > General
- Classical (c.1770-1830) > Forms & Genres > Chamber Music
- Instruments > Keyboard > General
- Debussy, Claude - Works by Debussy
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