The Harmonies Poètiques
et Réligieuses comprise ten
pieces which play for well in excess
of an hour. The music was composed and
variously revised over a period of some
ten years through to the early 1850s,
when Liszt gave up his itinerant lifestyle
and settled as Kapellmeister at Weimar.
This was the time when he gave himself
over to final, published versions of
the piano works that had evolved during
the earlier phase of his career. Of
this phenomenon the Harmonies represent
a particularly important example.
However, over the years
this music has been indifferently served
in the recorded music catalogues. Some
of the pieces, and arguably the best
ones, have become well known in their
own right, while others have remained
shrouded in obscurity. Therefore we
have every reason to be grateful to
David Barela, the pianist and the driving
force behind this new recording.
Aside from the performances,
there is an obvious, even glaring, flaw,
in that the third number of the sequence,
and arguably the best all the pieces,
has been omitted: Benédiction
de Dieu dans la solitude. It is admitted
in the accompanying notes that the reason
is that of space, but surely in this
day and age that is an example of the
tail wagging the dog. The production
of discs is not so costly as to preclude
two together in a single issue available
at a lower price, or as two for the
price of one. But there is the rub.
This disc is a small scale affair, in
that Barela himself seems to be the
force behind the project, and not simply
the artist.
This drawback means
that the attraction of acquiring the
complete set immediately disappears,
although Liszt enthusiasts may well
already have the missing piece in their
collections. It is, after all, well
known in its own right; we are not dealing
with the concept of a unified cycle
here.
Barela’s playing is
committed and sonorous, with appropriately
slow tempi and pensive phrasing when
required. And this is the trend for
much of the time, hence the collection’s
overall title. In terms of sound, the
bass end of the recorded perspective
fares much better than the treble, which
often seems artificial in tone. This
weighting has the advantage of adding
to the serious tone of the music, but
in the larger pieces such as the thirteen-minute
Funérailles the atmosphere created
is less than convincing. It also undermines
the structural strength of the music.
At extremes of tempo
the great artists can really make their
mark, with displays of dexterity or
of concentration, as the case may be.
Barela is an admirable musician, to
be sure, but he has not yet gained an
international reputation, while these
performances are not always as intense
as they might be in their concentrated
feeling.
The packaging reflects
the limitations already noted. For there
is no plastic case, but rather merely
a thin cardboard sleeve containing some
brief notes printed in a tiny font size
on a dark, patterned background. Therefore
the information is hard to read. With
these various limitations, this issue
cannot be confidently recommended, although
in some respects it can be counted a
‘near miss’.
Terry Barfoot
David Barela (piano) 