Gioacchino ROSSINI (1792-1868)
Péchés de vieillesse - Volume 3 - Album pour les enfants
adolescents [65:28]
Alessandro Marangoni (piano)
rec. Auditorium di Mortara, Pavia, Italy, 30 June - 1 July 2008
NAXOS 8.572315 [65:28]
This is the third volume of the intended complete piano music of Rossini from
Naxos (see reviews of
Volume 1). I was somewhat unenthusiastic about the second volume when I reviewed it
but I enjoyed this much more. This may be due to my being less familiar with
the music, but I think not. My chief concern over the earlier volume was
the degree and nature of freedom which Marangoni permitted himself. The amount
and type of rubato and an occasionally cavalier approach to dynamics
and phrasing seemed to go against the quirkiness of the music and to reduce
its individuality. Things are however much better here in this respect. In
the year or so between recording the two volumes Marangoni seems to have become
at home with the composer’s idiom, and the results are much more convincing.
This fifth volume of Rossini’s “Sins of Old Age” is entitled “Album
for Adolescent Children”. It contains twelve pieces, more varied than
those in some of the other volumes but of a uniformly high standard. The first
piece,“Première Communion”, is in two parts - a suitably
ecclesiastical Andante religioso, followed by a waltz depicting the
secular celebrations after the communion. Other pieces have similarly strange
names and stranger forms. The seventh for example is also in two contrasting
parts depicting “L’innocence Italienne” and “La candeur
Française” respectively, whilst the tenth has the strange title
of “Ouf! Les petits pois”. It is a delightfully inconsequential
piece and as a whole the Album is a series of delights, albeit that like a
box of chocolates it is best not taken all at once.
For me there is not a dud item on this disc although I know that others of
more severe tastes may regard some of the pieces as less appetising than their
titles. As I have explained, the performances are convincing and enjoyable,
and the recording is clear if at times a little bright for my taste. The notes
by Keith Anderson are full and helpful. I very much hope that the rest of the
series can maintain the high standards of this volume.
John Sheppard