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Gioachino
ROSSINI (1792-1868) Complete Piano Music - Volume 1 CD1 Péchés de vieillesse, Vol. VII: Album de Chaumière
Nos 1-7 [57:58] CD2 Péchés de vieillesse, Vol. VII: Album de Chaumière
Nos 8-12 [41:22] Péchés de vieillesse, Vol. IX: Album pour piano,
violon, violoncelle, harmonium et cor (Nos. 1, 3, 2,
5) [23:37]
Alessandro
Marangoni (piano)
rec. Auditorium di Mortara, Pavia, Italy, 29 October-2
November 2006. DDD NAXOS 8.570590-91 [57:58
+ 64:59]
Gioachino Rossini’s remarkable life and career is well known:
the opera composer who, with the world at his feet, appeared
to retire at the age of 37. He had around 17 years of huge
success with operas such as Il Barbiere di Siviglia,
and after completing his last opera Guillaume Tell,
he had another 39 years of ‘silence’. The second period
of his life was in fact anything but silent, and Rossini
would later turn up with pieces such as the Stabat Mater and
the wonderful Petit messe solennelle.
More private were the creations which became collected as
the Péchés de vieillesse or ‘Sins of Old Age’, which
are contained in fourteen volumes. Some of these are for
voice and piano, others, such as volume IX, include pieces
with strings, harmonium and horn, the solo piano works
from which appear at the end of this programme. Album
de Chaumière or ‘The Cottage
Album’ is the no doubt ironically twee title given to volume
VII, the first of the albums for solo piano. This consists
of 12 pieces ranging from titles such as Petite polka
chinoise to works of a grander scale such as Une
pensée à Florence. Rossini’s attitude with these works
is frequently ironic and often deceptive. Confronted with
a title such as Prélude inoffensif, one might expect
something other than the extended lyrical aria which in
fact appears. The generally light character of many of
the pieces is interspersed with more searching, funereal
atmospheres such as that in Un profound sommeil,
and Un cauchemar – literally ‘A Nightmare’. In these
pieces we are not so very far removed from the symbolic
cries of the owl in Leoš Janáček’s ‘On
a Overgrown Path.’ On the complete opposite there are parody-like
pieces such as the bombastic Marche which closes
Vol.VII.
Alessandro
Marangoni is a young pianist and a rising star whose reputation
will in no way be harmed with these recordings. Whatever
one thinks of these ‘Sins of Old Age’ they are certainly
a fascinatingly enigmatic and eclectic mixture of Rossini
in all moods. Fans of the Petit messe solenelle must
certainly investigate these pieces, as the thick piano
chords and bouncy bass lines which crop up in that work
are certainly not absent here. Fans of Rossini’s operas
are also kept well fed with rich melodic invention, if
performed instrumentally rather than vocally. This Naxos
recording is very good, with a rich, deep piano sound,
if captured in a rather dry and tubby acoustic. The impression
is one of a front room soirée rather than a concert hall
performance, which isn’t such a bad thing for these pieces.
I do however feel that a slightly more sympathetic space
might have helped Alessandro Marangoni when trying to give
a more legato feel, or in varying the colour and mood.
The pieces come across a little on the lumpy side sometimes,
and the contrast between some of the works is less startling
than might otherwise have been the case.
This new series will have to compete with the recordings
by Stefan Irmer on MDG,
and although there is no information on the instrument
used in the Naxos recording – other than that it is a Steinway & Sons
from the Angelo Fabbrini collection, it gives the impression
of being an older instrument, a quality it would then share
with the MDG recordings. The bass has a pleasant rounded
quality, and the usual Steinway brightness only really
shines through in the upper registers at higher volume.
Any reservations I may have can be accounted for as a matter
of personal taste, so nothing I say should stop anyone
from dropping into their local retailer and bagging this
remarkable release forthwith. This is going to turn into
another of Naxos’s eminently collectable sets, and on this
showing will prove to be worth it at almost any price.
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