No recording details are given for this disc, but it would appear
to be a reissue of one which first appeared in 1989. The accompanying
booklet carries an anonymous essay I would have described as inadequate
except that it contains the information that the short Page
d’album was composed during the First World War for a charity
dedicated to – as the title suggests – “dressing the wounds of
soldiers.” I had never heard this piece and can find no other
reference to it, neither in Lockspeisers’ two-volume biography
nor in Guy Sacré’s monumental study La Musique de Piano.
It’s a gem: a charming little waltz, slightly sad, quite perfect
and characteristic. Jean-Bernard Pommier, born in Béziers and
one of the most highly respected French pianists of his generation,
plays it beautifully and I’m delighted to make its acquaintance.
Otherwise,
this very inexpensive disc opens with the first major piano
work of Debussy’s maturity, the modestly titled Pour le
Piano. Pommier is very free with the pulse in the opening
Prélude, making rather more of the composer’s instructions
to hold and wait than many other pianists do. It is effective
and convincing though, and the reading is very satisfying,
even if one would wish for rather more in the way of piano
and pianissimo playing. In the Sarabande he
captures wonderfully well the synthesis of Debussy’s emerging
style, with its backward glance, and the very romantic sound
generated by big, sonorous chords. The opening of the final
Toccata is hardly piano, disappointing since
the rest of the reading has real stature. He brings out brilliantly
well the inner voices in the miraculous middle section, but
at the climax of the piece hardly respects the composer’s
wish that the piano should sound like an instrument without
hammers.
Pommier is
wonderfully successful at imitating the talented - but businesslike
- piano pupil getting through his exercises in the first piece
of Children’s Corner, a little less so when the child
gets bored and doodles, somewhat romantically, at the keyboard.
The heavy tread of the elephant in Jimbo’s Lullaby
is very skilfully brought out, but whoever is serenading the
doll in the third piece is rather skittish and abrupt. The
Snow is Dancing is the odd piece out in this collection,
chilly, if nothing like as cold as those footsteps in the
snow we encounter in the first book of Preludes. It’s
a surprisingly dramatic piece, which Pommier brings out well,
but there isn’t much childlike magic. An over-expressive approach
means much of the simple charm of The Little Shepherd
is lost, and the Golliwogg’s Cake Walk is clipped and
unsmiling.
Pagodes,
the first piece of the Estampes, receives an excellent
performance, calm and poised, and with a well drawn contrast
between the passages requiring perfect clarity of texture
and those where a dreamy, impressionistic wash of sound is
acceptable. La Soirée dans Grenade is very successful
too, the Spanish atmosphere well evoked and sustained. Near
the end, though, a flamenco guitar and castanets fleetingly
appear, not quite so “light and distant” as the score demands.
Then the wonderful Jardins sous la pluie begins quite
a few notches above the required pianissimo and continues
its hard-driven and sadly charmless way right to the end.
Having established
just the right atmosphere in Debussy pseudo salon piece, La
plus que lente, Pommier’s over-willingness at forte
and above then rather ruins it. The hammers are in evidence
once again even in the two arabesques, readings in which the
pianist refuses to linger. L’isle joyeuse is Debussy
at his most exuberant, but the work can seem episodic if tempo
relations are not carefully managed, and I don’t find Pommier
totally succeeds at this. The climax of the piece, which should
be exultant, is just loud.
I have admired
for many years a DG Debussy recital by Tamás Vásary which
includes many of the pieces featured here. It is now available
as part of a double album with the two books of Preludes in
fascinating and very individual readings by the late Italian
pianist Dino Ciani. Michelangeli is, in my view, unmatched
in Children’s Corner (also DG). Jean-Bernard Pommier’s
playing is technically brilliant, and many of the pieces work
well, but in too many others I find his Debussy relentless
and lacking in charm. Others will welcome the extreme clarity
of articulation and pedalling, and for those, if the programme
appeals, this disc is satisfying indeed.
William Hedley
Jean-Bernard Pommier (piano)
