When Timpani set about championing a
particular composer there are no half
measures. Vierne, for too long conveniently
organ-lofted has had his complete songs,
orchestral music, piano music, chamber
music and songs recorded by Timpani.
The chamber music and piano music is
each accorded a double CD.
Initially issued as
2C2019 in a cumbersome double-width
case it now comes in a single slimline
double; a good decision. The original
included lengthy notes by Jean-Pierre
Mazeirat. These are now replaced by
a brief and rather non-specific essay
by Jean-Philippe Dartevel. If you want
the original notes they can be found
at the www.timpani-records.com or www.abeillemusique.com
sites.
The Violin Sonata
is in four movements and the Galpérine/Kerdoncuff
team are finely matched with the music
as they also were in the Second Violin
Sonata of Wilhelm Furtwängler also
on Timpani (1C1001). The first of the
four movements has all the imperious
tumult of the first movement of the
Cras Piano Quintet (on Timpani 1C1066).
The andante is a moonlit time-pent
meditation with adventurous harmony
veering into the slippery romanticism
of the John Foulds Cello Sonata. A devilish
vivace rather like Saint-Saëns
leads to an impassioned largamente
and allegro agitato. The sonata
was written with Raoul Pugno and Eugene
Ysaye in mind but a 'friend' premiered
it and did not make the best of it.
To cap it all Vierne was to discover
that the 'friend' was the lover of Vierne's
wife, Arlette.
The Rhapsody
for solo harp is an extended concert
essay which in 1915 was chosen by Fauré
as the set-piece for the Conservatoire
exams. It sounds both technically challenging
and gorgeous; the latter being a tough
trick to pull off with a solo instrument
exposed to attention in this way. Great
variation in dynamics is specified and
delivered by Zanlonghi.
The Piano Quintet
has had at least three recordings
and this duplication is well merited
in a work written à la mémoire
de son fils Jacques. In the original
issue Jacques is pictured on p. 21 of
Jean-Pierre Mazeirat's notes. Fresh-faced
and in uniform the picture was taken
as he left for the Front. He was killed
on 11 November 1917. Vierne already
under threat of blindness from glaucoma,
and with his marriage to Arlette in
ruins now blamed himself for having
consented to Jacques joining up. He
wrote the Quintet as an outlet for his
grief. The violin theme at 4.55 expresses
most sincerely and adroitly his grieving
as does the plangent tenderness of the
Larghetto which is mellow as
Delius and as warm as remembered sunshine.
It is a most beautiful invention. Vierne
wrote of the work that he would bury
his son 'with a roar of thunder not
with the plaintive bleating of a resigned,
stupid sheep.' The finale shivers and
shudders with shell-blasts and violence
before picking up the overweening aggressive
confidence of the first movement with
which it ends after one more return
to the haunted battlefields. The work
closes in one breathless stabbing access
of violence. There is no twilit farewell.
Le Soir and
Légende are the
Deux Pièces for viola
and piano - polished and mellifluous
in the case of the former and antique
in the case of the latter. They were
written for his kindly teacher Pierre
Adam who died just as Vierne finished
his studies.
Vierne selected Pablo
Casals as the dedicatee of his Cello
Sonata. This is another impassioned
work which can be compared with the
cello sonatas of Rachmaninov, York Bowen
and John Foulds. If the Maestoso
of the Piano Quintet is one of the most
audacious Vierne conceptions the central
largamente is the most noble
and declamatory movement. The finale
is sensuous and dramatic.
The Largo and
Canzonetta for oboe and piano:
The Largo draws inspiration from
Bach - like some slightly updated Cavatina.
The Canzonetta is more light-hearted.
Then comes the Soirs
Étrangers - a
collection of mood-pictures. The first,
Grenade can be added to the list
of music written by French composers
to summon up images of Spain. These
‘pictures’ were written in Lausanne
where Vierne stayed with the Vuillemins
recovering from the devastation of the
loss of Jacques. Lausanne came to mean
a great deal to the composer. Sur
le Leman is an impassioned and liquidly
flowing impressionistic portrait with
the cello acting as the orator of a
long-breathed tune. Venise is
suggested by a barcarole. Steppe
Canadien is a decidedly pessimistic
portrait. Here, awe at the great unpopulated
distances, shades into fear. If these
are postcards they are grown-up postcards
without easy victories. To dispel the
bleakness along comes Poisson Chinois
which is a study in flashing speed
and surging cello celerity - a sort
of Flight of the Bumble Bee but
with air substituted by water and fins
for wings. It ends in a curiously casual
but well-balanced gesture. This last
movement somehow is too light for all
it precedes. These reflective globe-trotting
‘esquisses’ are typical of a widely-travelled
concert virtuoso who was used to touring
Europe and North America.
In 1894, while in Caen
on holiday, he wrote at hot tempo two
movements of a String Quartet
and by September had finished the other
two movements. This is the work of a
24 year old. Vierne writes warm and
enveloping music and his theme for the
first movement is superbly rounded and
most admirably handled. The spiky and
songful intermezzo has traces
of a fantastic Sabbath about it rather
like a sort of pre-teens witches-flight
- a cross between Mussorgsky's Night
on the Bare Mountain, Liadov's Baba
Yaga, Schierbeck's Hexen and
Dukas’s Sorcerer's Apprentice.
The andante is in thrall to the
Siegfried Idyll; Vierne revered
Wagner. The finale runs skittering away
like Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's
Dream scherzo. It ends in a duetting
blaze leaping from the pages of Bach's
Double Violin Concerto.
These are first recordings
of all apart from the piano quintet
(on both Pierre Verany and Hyperion)
and the Cello Sonata.
A de rigueur purchase
and certainly generous. Essential listening
for the sonatas, quintet and the Rhapsodie;
otherwise never less than pleasing.
Everything is presented to Timpani's
accustomed high standards.
Rob Barnett
Footnote
As a side note, I wanted
to let you know that there was a recording
of the violin sonata of Vierne on the
Canadian CBC label played by Anne Robert
and Sylviane Deferne. The CD also had
the third violin sonata of Ropartz and
the theme and variations of Messiaen.
I highly recommend it to you if you
can find it - it was out of print last
time I checked a year ago.
Best wishes and keep
up the good work, Vatche P. Tchakerian
Quatuor Phillips 
