Mercier Und Camier

Nirgendwo könne ein Komponist seinen Stil besser entwickeln als in der Kirche, wo die Übel des Kunstbetriebes, Applaus und Erfolgsdenken, keinen Platz besäßen, bekannte Camille Saint-Saëns einmal, und er wußte, wovon er sprach: Er selbst war zwanzig Jahre lang als Organist an der Pariser Madeleine tätig gewesen. Die Werke dieser CD belegen Saint-Saëns' These. Sowohl das Requiem als auch die Psalmvertonung verblüffen durch einen ganz eigenen Tonfall, der eine eingängige Melodik, raffiniert chromatische Harmonik und klangsinnliche Instrumentation verbindet.

Regular duet and two-piano partners, Hélène Mercier and Louis Lortie have returned to the studio for this all-Debussy programme. The album features duets written by the composer himself – such as the Petite Suite, the Six Épigraphes antiques, and the Marche écossaise sur un thème populaire, as well as a number of arrangements of his solo piano pieces (the Première Arabesque, La Fille aux cheveux de lin, and the Ballade slave). The album ends with André Caplet’s monumental arrangement of Debussy’s best-known orchestral work, La Mer. Stripping the work of its orchestral colours, this two-piano version allows the listener to appreciate more easily Debussy’s ground-breaking harmonic innovation. The album was recorded in the concert hall at Snape Maltings, in Suffolk, using a pair of Bösendorfer 280 VC grand pianos.

Louis Théodore Gouvy (1819–98) was born on the border between two cultures, French and German. He grew up in a French-speaking family living in an Alsatian village in the Saare, which at the time of his birth was under Prussian control. Not until he was 32 was he able to attain French citizenship.

Fellow composers such as Ambroise Thomas and Charles Gounod attended the Symphony No. 4 premiere in Paris, 1856, and were moved to amazed admiration. French critics approvingly wrote how ‘finely thought out, expansively developed, and clearly and brilliantly written’ the score was.

Previous reviews of Gouvy’s music in Fanfare have commented upon its echoes of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and those certainly are present here. The first subject of the symphony’s finale, with its rapid triplet accompaniment, immediately recalls the opening of the “Italian” Symphony, and the spirit of Schumann hovers over portions of the first movement, and also of the last two movements of the Sinfonietta. The early Brahms of the serenades also makes his presence felt in the second subject of the symphony’s first movement. Occasional phrases recall Bizet (one figure in the symphony’s scherzo is close kin to a smuggler’s chorus in Carmen ), Gounod, and Berlioz. Yet, in listening to both compositions, the music of a different figure came immediately and strikingly to mind—Max Bruch.

Alsatian composer Théodore Gouvy (1819-1898) composed seven symphonies, making him one of the few French composers of his day to focus on abstract instrumental music. The fact that he was independently wealthy helped, but even so, and like his compatriot Berlioz, he enjoyed greater success in Germany (Leipzig especially) than he did in France. That said, the music on offer here sounds distinctly French in its supple rhythms, light textures, and piquant scoring for winds and harp (in the slow movement of the Third Symphony). The handling of form is also very assured given the music's mid-19th-century provenance.