1. Chopinata (Fantaisie Musicale dans un rythme de Fax sur des
motifs de Chopin) [3:28]
2. The Man I Love [2:03]
3. Yes Sir, That's My Baby [1:30]
4. Do It Again [1:36]
5. Hungaria (Fantaisie Musicale dans un rythme de Fox sur des
motifs de Liszt) [2:45]
6. Let's Do It [4:42]
7. Doll Dance [2:05]
8. J'ai pas su y faire [3:36]
9. Blue River [3:12]
10. Why Do I Love You [2:29]
11. A Little Slow Fox with Mary [2:31]
12. Covanduihno [2:23]
13. Poppy Cock [1:35]
14. Blues [2:28]
15. Isoldina [2:06]
16. Blues chanté [2:44]
17. Gonna Get A Girl [2:30]
18. Henri, pourquoi n'aimes-tu pas les femmes [2:22]
19. Tango des Fratellini, extrait du Boeuf sur le toit [1:50]
20. Five o'clock (extrait de L'Enfant et les Sortilèges)
[1:50]
21. Caramel mou [5:14]
22. Haarlem [3:05]
23. Collegiate [1:37]
24. Georgian Blues [3:45]
25. Saint Louis Blues [2:33]
26. Clement's Charleston [1:25]
Don't expect an all-Milhaud disc, even though it takes
one of the Frenchman's most famous creations as its title
piece. What you can expect, instead, is a front row seat at
a Parisian cabaret where Alexandre Tharaud, assisted by his
confrères, celebrates the music of the epoch with a series of
inspired selections, mostly from the insouciant pens of Jean
Wiéner and Clément Doucet. It was the latter who concocted his
'Fantasy Foxtrot' Chopinata, a chic update,
performed with suitably elegant dispatch. His Hungaria
does for Liszt what he did for Chopin: nightclub bravura of
a decidedly knowing kind. Tharaud isn't deaf to the entreaties
of simplicity, thus his The Man I Love is played straight,
with no cross-currents from Les Six. Crunchy chords enliven
Walter Donaldson's Yes, Sir, That's My Baby.
Together Tharaud and Frank Braley summon up Wiéner and Doucet
in a series of two-piano performances of arrangements, with
an especially dextrous and vigorous Why Do I Love You?
Whilst Fauré fainted at Bayreuth, his compatriot Doucet has
fun with Wagner, concocting Isoldina, in 1928, an opus
of decidedly vampish qualities.
Guest musicians include Madeleine Peyroux, who is typically
imaginative on Let's Do It, charming too, but
gliding splendidly behind the beat. Juliette is quite genteel
on J'ai pas su y faire. There's an unusual
wispy melisma courtesy of Natalie Dessay in Blues chante
whilst Benabar steps into Maurice Chevalier's shoes for
Gonna Get a Girl. The Virgin Voices lend their lungs
in the cause of a brief extract from the operetta Louis
XIV. There's a brief extract from the title track
- 97 seconds of the Tango des Fratellini which is extracted
and re-christened from Boeuf sur le toit. There’s also
an arrangement by Roger Branga of a brief segment from Ravel's
L'Enfant et les Sortilèges, re-christened Five
o’clock.
Thus one can see that some 'classical' items have
been subjected to the nightclub ethos alongside the works of
American and other contemporaries. They all work well, providing
contrast and colour and variations in pacing and instrumentation.
The disc, in fact, ends with a series of bluesy numbers from
Wiéner and others. The slow bluesy Haarlem (misspelling
by Wiéner or deliberate?) rubs shoulders with the St Louis
Blues, played on a Pleyel harpsichord in Wiéner’s arrangement
for the instrument in 1938. It adds a droll Wanda Landowska
touch. The date alerts one to the fact that Le Boeuf had a short
life and had long since shut. In fact it shut in 1928.
To further entice there's a pleasing gatefold album with
an excellent illustrated booklet.
Jonathan Woolf
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Alexandre Tharaud (piano); Frank Braley (piano); David Chevallier
(banjo); Florent Jodelet (percussion); Madeleine Peyroux (vocals);
Juliette (vocals); Natalie Dessay (vocals); Bénabar (vocals); Guillaume
Gallienne (vocals); The Virgin Voices