Camille PLEYEL (1788-1855)
Le Matelot - Caprice on a Favourite Romance in G, op.38 (1824) [8:29]
Un Troubadour Béarnais, with Variations, Introduction and Finale in
G minor, op.1 (1816) [10:15]
Nocturne à la Field in B flat, op.52 (1828) [4:23]
Potpourri no.2 in G of Arias from Rossini's Operas [9:50]
Introduction and Rondeau in C minor, op.2 (1817) [6:33]
Mélange on Motifs from "Maçon" (Auber), in E flat, op.46
(1825) [7:47]
Theme on Polish Airs with New Variations in A minor, op.3 (1817) [12:14]
Masha Dimitrieva (piano)
rec. Pleyel Museum, Rupperthal, Austria, 25 June, 1 October 2010. DDD
GRAMOLA 98884 [59:30]
Camille Pleyel was the "brilliant son of a brilliant father", the
father in question being Ignaz Pleyel, Austrian composer, music publisher
and piano-maker extraordinaire. Camille, born in Paris and more French than
Austrian, followed much the same path as Ignaz, eventually joining his father
in business in 1815 and giving up composing - though not concert-giving. Very
little of Camille's music has been recorded. Bart van Oort included the Nocturne
à la Field in his 4 CD Art of the Nocturne in the Nineteenth Century
recording for Brilliant Classics a few years ago (review),
but beyond that there is little or nothing available.
Besides being a welcome introduction to Pleyel's talents, this is also the
eighth solo CD of Crimean pianist Masha Dimitrieva. Her most important discs
to date have been her recording of American composer Gordon Sherwood's Piano
Concerto for CPO (777 012-2), and two CDs of music by Ignaz Pleyel: two Concertos
arranged for piano by the composer himself in premiere recordings for Ars
Production (ARS 38813), and solo piano works for Gramola (98816), performed
using one of Ignaz's original instruments.
Similarly, on this latest recording Dimitrieva plays Ignaz Pleyel's six-and-a-quarter
octave op. 1614, built in 1831 and now preserved in the Pleyel Museum in Austria.
Unlike his father's music, Camille Pleyel's is not always the subtlest, but
then he was not writing for particularly subtle audiences. He was primarily
a businessman and a virtuoso and obviously wrote his music with the preferences
of the general public in mind. Thus most of his music consisted of piano and
chamber works often farrago-like in content and style. Nevertheless, these
are not fripperies for bored housewives, but elegant, witty, varied, often
virtuosic pieces that demonstrate a painstaking, intelligent pianism as well
as a shrewd business sense. From barnstormers like Le Matelot to the
lyrical Nocturne à la Field, Pleyel's music, played in true 19th century
virtuoso style by Dimitrieva, is guaranteed to get feet tapping and smiles
breaking in all but the most hard-hearted of listener.
The trilingual CD booklet is glossy, informative and well written, if translated
occasionally with a peculiar turn of phrase. The track listing does repeat
the New Grove Dictionary's statement that Pleyel's final work was his opus
51, yet the Nocturne à la Field is labelled, rightly or wrongly, as
op.52. For those still wavering about Pleyel, the CD booklet can be downloaded
free from the Pleyel Museum's website here.
As well as sporting a cover photo of Dimitrieva looking like a 1950s film
star, the booklet also has full-page prints of Camille Pleyel and Marie Moke,
pianist and piano teacher who infamously went from being Berlioz's fiancée
to Pleyel's wife and the "Mme Pleyel" to whom Chopin dedicated his
op.9 his Nocturnes. As her first given name was, coincidentally, also Camille,
it would have been amusing, and perhaps revealing, for Gramola to have recorded
some of her music - she was also an occasional composer - for this recital,
which at just under an hour is rather short. She was, by all accounts, an
even better pianist than her ex-husband - indeed she went on to play four
hand music with Liszt, who became a personal friend.
Byzantion
Collected reviews and contact at reviews.gramma.co.uk
Elegant, witty, varied, virtuosic … demonstrating painstaking, intelligent
pianism.