Trois Gymnopédies (1888)
Six Gnossiènes (1889-93)
Croquis et Agaceries (1913)
Embryons desséchés (1913)
Sonatine bureaucratique (1917)
Avant-dernières Pensées (1915)
Véritables préludes flasques (1912)
Cinq Nocturnes (1919)
Trois Morceaux en forme de poire * (1903)
La Belle Excentrique * (1920)
Aldo Ciccolini (piano) joined by Gabriel Tacchino in *
What a surprise to be reminded that the Three Gymnopédies date
from 1888! Their timeless slow treading enchantment is seraphically in keeping
with Keats' Ode to a Grecian Vase. Gnossiènes (the title refers to
the Knossos of antiquity) represent cold pebbles and pools. Number four is
oriental and very attractive while No. 6 seems to suggest the sidling canter
of a centaur. Do not miss these pieces if you are at all drawn to Ravel's
Pavane.
In the Agaceries Mozart meets Joplin and Beethoven and Chabrier's
España gets the mocking Satie treatment. The Embryons
(some cross-fertilisation here with Saint-Saens fossils from Carnival
of the Animals?) skitter and rush like a nest of cockroaches contrasting
with the pompous second piece and the jaunty third with its dissentient car
horn noises.
The Sonatine Bureaucratique is Mozartian and early Beethoven with
a touch of the Fate motif in the middle movement. Avant-dernières
pensées is, in its first section, very much out of the same pages
as Gymnopédie No. 1 as also is no. 2 brisk. On joue
is brusque. The Five nocturnes are slow with the ooze of summer; the
fall of sap from the baking trees. The last nocturne (un-named) is vaguely
dissonant.
We then come to the pieces for two pianos. Trois Morceaux en forme de
poire represent a varied picture gallery: exotic impressionism (and possibly
his own Gymnopédies) lampooned, Graingerian scattiness and
clattering anarchy. Anarchic loopiness jumps and shakes it way through La
Belle Excentrique and if you know Peter Warlock's Cod-Pieces or
Lord Berners' piano music you will likely take to these pieces.
I jumped to quite the wrong conclusion when I first saw this disc. I had
presumed that the recordings were reissues from an analogue cycle recorded
by Ciccolini in the late 1960s. Not a bit of it. These are true DDD recordings
made in the 1980s.
Documentation superb. Recordings fine. Playing time generous. Performances
a joy making as much of the moods lampooned as the lampooning itself.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
Details of the entire Great Recordings of the Century series may be
seen here
Aldo Ciccolini
(piano) 
