MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW Plain text for smartphones & printers


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

Support us financially by purchasing this from
Philippe GAUBERT (1879-1941)
Violin Sonata in A major (1915) [22:39]
Three Pieces for cello and piano (1928) [7:53]
Four Esquisses for violin and piano (1927) [11:53]
Lamento, for cello and piano (1911) [7:12]
Three Aquarelles for piano, violin and cello (1915) [14:02]
Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabédian (violin)
Henri Demarquette (cello)
Marie-Josèphe Jude (piano)
rec. October 2012 and October 2013, Vincennes, Coeur de ville
TIMPANI 1C1203 [64:34]

It’s been clear for some time that the great flautist Philippe Gaubert was capable of writing music of no little distinction, and this is certainly not the first disc to chart his compositions. His Symphony was his principal large-scale work – there is also a violin concerto - but he found smaller canvases more congenial and Timpani have focused on a series of works for chamber forces composed between 1911 and 1928.
 
In the booklet notes Himalayan claims are made for the 1915 Violin Sonata. Made, yes, but are they sustainable? It’s a four-movement work that offers a lexicon of engaging and rewarding things. There’s a hint of the Kreutzer Sonata about the opening, arresting and self-confident, but we open up immediately into the world of Gallic pastoral lyricism, more overt – harmonically – than Fauré and with plenty of contrasting material structured in good old sonata form. This is bubbling over with effusive charm, but whilst the slow movement is warmly sculpted it never truly achieves memorability. The brief third movement is a different matter - a stuttering, comic scherzando – that leads to a finale notable for fluid lyricism where he comes closest to Debussian ethos, though one wouldn’t call this inspired by impressionism. The sonata was premiered by Thibaud and Cortot. So whilst I wouldn’t say that this little-known sonata grazes the mountain peaks of greatness, it sits very well in the Franco-Belgian lineage.
 
The Three Pieces were dedicated to that prince of French cellists, Maurice Maréchal. The Lied is a lovely song without words with a more flighty B section, the Menuet evokes Fauré in antique mood, and the Cortège is full of grace, elevated feeling and, again, somewhat reminiscent of Fauré. The four Esquisses for violin and piano come from 1927 and are even better, full of depth and allusion. The Extase put me in mind of passages from Delius’s Violin Concerto and there’s a rapt depiction of the twilit sea in the second piece. Hunting motifs, with suitably confident fanfares, are evoked in Une chasse…au loin whilst the shore portrait that finishes the set, the most elusive and nostalgic, ends in gentle calm. More obviously strenuous, a stylistic conflation of Late Romanticism and Franckian chromaticism, is the Lamento for cello and piano, very effectively sustained over its seven-minute length. Finally we hear the first recording of the Trois Aquarelles in the original version for violin, cello and piano – the version in which flute replaces violin has already been recorded. These delightful miniatures are variously effusively lyrical, with hints of d’Indy perhaps, a rich lullaby, and in the last of the three, a hint of Spanishry in the shimmer and sway.
 
The splendid performances have been well recorded and are supported by an enthusiastic booklet note which sings Gaubert’s compositional praises. Rightly so, really, as he has a small but individual voice in the world of French music of the time.
 
Jonathan Woolf