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Cecile Ousset (piano)
The Decca France Recordings
rec. 1970-1976, Paris
ELOQUENCE 4827395 [7 CDs: 401 mins]

This collection brings together all the solo recordings Ousset made for Decca France before moving to EMI from whence her perhaps more familiar recordings hail - the concertos she recorded with Sir Simon Rattle and Sir Neville Marriner, for instance. Her early recording of Brahms' Second Piano Concerto was a collaboration between Decca France and Eterna but as Eterna currently holds the recording rights that is not included here.

These discs give us a wonderful glimpse into the earlier years of a pianist who was such a big name in the last two decades of the twentieth century. After her studies with Marcel, Ciampi Ousset went on to win prizes in several of the major competitions including the Busoni, the Queen Elisabeth and the Van Cliburn. She was gifted with a prodigious technique and had a wide repertoire, specialising in the music of the Romantic era, including big helpings of the Russian composers as well as the later French school.

Her first disc for Decca, recorded in 1971 was a French collection. Ousset's virtuosity is in full swing here; the Études by Debussy and Saint-Saens are tackled with great vibrancy and a disdain for their difficulties, while the clarity of her passagework is remarkable throughout. Her control of dynamics within complex sections is particularly successful: listen to the long crescendo through the middle section of the Saint-Saëns Toccata. I find the Satie items poised and elegant as are the Chabrier, which bounce along with a certain restraint until the playful frolics of the Bourrée fantasque.

For me this seems to be the pattern for the performances in general. In the slower items everything is in place and beautifully controlled but somewhat lacking in intimacy. In the more virtuosic music, and there is plenty to savour here; Ousset is more communicative and commanding. I feel that she gets the balance right most successfully in the Prokofiev pieces on disc 3 and the Beethoven variations that take up over half of the collection. The Rachmaninov that opens disc three is well played but with the exception of the Humoresque missing that little bit of personality but she really hits the spot with the Prokofiev. She is suavely coaxing in the almost Godowskian lines of the Gavotte, a crisp Rigaudon, a lovely Légende with some of the tenderest playing on offer here, a grotesquely humorous Allemande and the white-knuckle ride that is the final Scherzo.

The Beethoven is fresh and bright, full of light and shade. Not being familiar with the majority of these I was taken with the wide range of mood, emotion and imagination which Ousset captures marvellously. All of the positive features from the other discs shine through here: sparkling clarity and precision, fearlessness and youthful joie-de-vivre that makes listening through these four variations discs a great pleasure.

The sound is generally excellent. I found the first disc somewhat reverberant (it also offers some slight background traffic noise in Debussy's third Étude) but that does not detract from the gripping, communicative performances. I was more bothered by the occasional pre-echo of the note before the actual attack of the note itself – the first note of Debussy's Étude pour les octaves is an obvious example but it crops up quite a lot on this first disc. Thankfully it is absent from the other discs.

This set offers some stunning playing from Ousset's early career.

Rob Challinor

Contents:
Disc: 1
1. CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) Douze Études pour le piano [15:20]
2. ERIK SATIE (1866-1925) Trois Gymnopédies [9:31]
3. CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS (1835-1921) Étude en forme de valse, Op. 62 No. 5 [6:20]
4. Toccata: Étude d’après le 5ème concerto, Op. 111 No. 6 [4:22]
5. EMMANUEL CHABRIER (1841-1894) Pièces pittoresques [8:37]
6. Bourrée Fantasque [6:13]

Disc: 2
1. SERGEI RACHMANINOV (1873-1943) Morceaux de fantaisie, Op. 3 [20:48]
2. Morceaux de Salon, Op. 10: Humoresque, Op. 10 [2:56]
3. SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891-1953) Ten Pieces for piano, Op. 12 [23:37]

Disc: 3
1. ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) Carnaval, Op. 9 [30:12]
2. JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) Variations on a theme of Paganini, Op. 35 [22:59]

Disc: 4
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
1. 9 Variations on a march by Ernst Christoph Dressler, WoO 63 [12:52]
2. Variations (6) in F major on a Swiss Song, WoO 64 [2:57]
3. 9 Variations on 'Quant’è piu bello’ from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera La Molinara, WoO 69 [5:16]
4. 24 Variations on Vincenzo Righini’s aria ‘Venni Amore’, WoO 65 [22:34]
5. 6 Variations on ‘Nel cor più non mi sento’ from Giovanni Paisiello’s opera La Molinara, WoO 70 [5:33]
5. 13 Variations on the aria ‘Es war einmal ein alter Mann’ from Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf’s opera Das rote Käppchen, WoO 66 [12:13]
6. 12 Variations on the ‘Menuet a la Vigano’ from Jakob Haibel’s ballet La nozza disturbate, WoO 68 [14:23]

Disc: 5
1. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) 8 Variations on ‘Une fièvre brulante’ from Andre Gretry’s opera Richard Coeur-de-lion, WoO 72 [7:06]
2. 6 Easy Variations on an original theme for piano, WoO 77 [6:50]
3. 6 Variations on a theme in F major, Op. 34 [15:32]
4. 7 Variations for piano on ‘God Save the King’, WoO 78 [9:19]
5. 7 Variations on ‘Kind, willst du ruhig schlafen’ from Peter Winter’s opera Das unterbrochene Opferfest, WoO 75 [10:27]
6. 5 Variations on ‘Rule, Britannia!‘, WoO 79 [4:42]
7. 8 Variations on ‘Tändeln und scherzen’ from Franz Xaver Süssmayr’s opera Soliman II, WoO 76 [8:45]
8. 6 Variations on an original theme (the Turkish March from The Ruins of Athens) in D major, Op. 76 [6:33]

Disc: 6
1. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) 32 Variations on an original theme in C minor, WoO 80 [10:25]
2. 12 Variations on the Russian dance from Paul Wranitzky’s ballet Das Waldmädchen, WoO 71 [11:26]
3. 10 Variations on ‘La stessa, la stessissima’ from Antonio Salieri’s opera Falstaff, WoO 73 [11:07]
4. 15 Variations and Fugue in E flat major on an original theme, Op. 35 (‘Eroica Variations’) [23:58]

Disc: 7
1. LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) 33 Variations in C major on a Waltz by Diabelli, Op. 120 [48:44]