Exercise Music

Hania Rani announces ‘Music for Film and Theatre’ a personal selection of recent compositions for film, theatre and other projects.

Apparently a staple in Russia, the music of Taneyev exists on the fringes of the repertoire in the West, something that should be rectified–and will be if this superb CD made by a starry cast of performers gets the attention it deserves. He’s a Romantic composer, but hardly of the heart-on-sleeve variety, since he was a master of counterpoint and firmly encased his Romantic impulses in a well-fitted classical jacket. Sometimes he makes you think of a more modern, pungent Brahms with a Russian accent.

Louis Lortie is well-known for his Ravel. His recording of the two piano concertos is one of my favorites. This set pairs him with a childhood friend, a fellow pianist from Montréal, Hélène Mercier now long resident in Paris. They play a couple of Ravel's own one-piano, four-hands arrangements (Mother Goose & Rapsodie Espagnole) and three two-piano, four-hands arrangements (Introduction and Allegro, La Valse, Boléro). Actually, Mother Goose was originally written for four-hands at one piano, for a couple of talented children of friends of Ravel's; he later orchestrated it and that is now probably the more familiar version.