This is the first of
three volumes presenting the whole of
Rameau’s keyboard works on the piano
for the first time: in particular, the
recordings of the three Concerts from
Pièces de clavecin are
claimed as the first on the piano.
Regular readers will
know that I am generally averse to piano
renditions of music written for the
harpsichord or clavichord, with slightly
grudging exceptions for the likes of
Glenn Gould’s and Angela Hewitt’s Bach.
I had not realised when I placed my
bid for this recording that it was a
piano version; when realisation dawned,
on opening the parcel, I thought that
I might regret the oversight. I am delighted
to report that I was wrong: I now add
Stephen Gutman’s Rameau to my list of
exceptions and I shall bid for the next
volume when it appears.
From the very opening
of the first Suite it is apparent that
Gutman shares one quality with Hewitt,
a harpsichord-like lightness of touch
that effectively makes one forget that
he is playing the piano. Of course,
the argument which I employ in the case
of Angela Hewitt still applies: if he/she
can play with such lightness of touch,
why not play the harpsichord or clavichord?
I have not heard Angela
Hewitt’s recordings of three Rameau
Suites (Hyperion SACDA/CDA 67597) but
cannot imagine that they can be much
better than Gutman’s versions. (In fact,
my colleague Patrick
C Waller was less than bowled over
in his review, though other reviewers
reacted much more positively.) Whereas
I understand that the Hyperion recording
was made in a somewhat opulent acoustic,
with the piano very forward, that on
the present Toccata release is neutral,
neither too dry nor too reverberant
and with the piano ideally placed. The
recording was made at Hurstwood Farm
– a real farm, which grows walnuts as
well as housing beautiful pianos, as
the notes remind us. More to the point,
both the instrument and the location
seem very well chosen.
The major problem in
performing Rameau on the piano is what
to do with the ornamentation which,
on the modern instrument, can easily
sound fussy, louder than the melodic
line and thus in the way. This is never,
to my ears, a problem in this Gutman
recording: the overall line predominates
over the ornamentation at all times.
The first two Suites
consist of dance music: allemandes,
courantes, gigues, etc., and Gutman
allows these simply to be as they are
described. Tracks 6, Vénitienne,
14, Le rappel des oiseaux and
17, La villageoise, are what
PCW describes as genre pieces, which
he finds more interesting. Vénitienne
may not particularly evoke a picture
of a Venetian lady or girl in our minds,
but this is a rather early example of
the type, still more a minuet than a
piece of programme music. Gutman simply
plays it like the other dances in the
Suite, which is surely right, albeit
with perhaps an extra touch of lightness.
By the date of the
Second Suite (1624) Rameau had become
more adept at such programme music:
Le rappel des oiseaux really
does attempt to evoke birdsong, though
less effectively than the better-known
la poule, for which we must await
one of the later Gutman volumes. (In
a sense Messiaen’s piano and orchestral
works based on birdsong were the logical
development of such music as Rameau’s
Le rappel and La poule.)
Matters are more complicated
in the case of the three Concerts from
the later Pièces de clavecin
en concerts. As the overall title
makes clear, these works were intended
for keyboard with string accompaniment
and, as PCW points out, are best heard
in that original format on a bargain-price
Harmonia Mundi CD, HMA195 1418, with
Christophe Rousset et al. Gutman
himself has transcribed them for solo
piano for this recording. Do they work
in this format? Heard on their own,
without comparing the Rousset recording,
they do, provided that one feigns amnesia,
as it were, of the originals. In any
case, as Professor Graham Sadler points
out in the excellent notes, Rameau conceived
of these works as for accompanied harpsichord
– they are emphatically not what we
would consider violin sonatas – and
gave detailed guidance on how players
could adapt the pieces for solo keyboard.
Eighteenth-century composers were much
more flexible than we sometimes think
about how they intended their music
to be performed, as witness Corelli’s
Op.5 Sonatas.
There are far more
genre pieces in these later works: in
fact, only the concluding sections of
Concert No.2 (Menuets I & II) and
Concert No.3 (Tambourin I & II)
are dance movements. Nevertheless, as
the notes admit, the link between title
and piece is not always strong. Some
of them refer to colleagues and pupils,
others to fictitious characters such
as Coulicam or Kouli Khan (track
19) or to places such as le Vézinet
(track 21). As I have never been to
Vézinet, now a suburb of Paris,
the appropriateness of the appellation
is hard to determine. Best just to enjoy
the music as music, which is what Gutman
allows us to do.
La Laborde (track
22) and La Boucon (23) are named
after star pupils but neither offers
scope for the kind of display we might
have expected for young virtuosi. Neither
here nor elsewhere is Gutman concerned
to offer a display of virtuoso pianism
for its own sake but he keeps completely
within the spirit of the music. (Which
again reminds me to ask why not play
the music on the original instrument?)
Stephen Gutman himself
partly answers this question in the
second part of the notes, an eloquent
apologia. His playing and his
words persuade me that he does not harm
the music, though I’m not convinced
by the second leg of his argument, that
"the piano could even bring something
to the table in our appreciation of
the music". (p.11) This section
of the notes makes an excellent pendant
to Professor Sadler’s more scholarly
opening. In particular, Gutman’s discussion
of ornamentation is well worth reading,
with his emphasis on the porte de
voix (appoggiatura) and down-playing
of the role of the pincé
(trill to the lower note).
One of the ways in
which operatic music was disseminated
in earlier centuries was via keyboard
transcriptions or other arrangements,
such as those which Triebensee later
made of Mozart. Claude-Bénigne
Balbastre’s 1748 arrangement of movements
from Rameau’s Pigmalion (1748)
was followed by a version of Les
Paladins, a rearguard work for the
harpsichord from a composer who despised
the then infant fortepiano, now, ironically,
arranged for the descendant of that
fledgling instrument. Gutman’s nimble
performance of the Air des paladins
from that suite makes a fitting conclusion
to a recording which I found myself
enjoying and recommending much more
than I expected.
Just to make sure that
I had not over-compensated for my general
dislike of harpsichord music on the
piano, I listened to the CD all the
way through twice more without changing
my mind. I can’t pretend that this will
always be my preferred recording of
these works but I’m sure it won’t disappear
into the limbo of forgotten recordings
either. Those who actively prefer the
piano in this repertoire may purchase
with confidence. Harpsichord-lovers
have my word that they will not be offended.
Brian Wilson
Stephen
Gutman (piano) 
