la Mer Piano

Alexander Melnikov is among those pianists increasingly committed to playing the works of the past on the instruments from which they came into being (or could have done so). Thus, it is on an Érard - a ''period'' piano - that he performs the second book of Debussy's Préludes, and with the help of Olga Pashchenko, the composer's extraordinary transcription of La Mer.

From the opening notes of “Brouillards,” it’s clear why Alexander Melnikov has chosen one of his own historic pianos for Debussy’s second volume of Préludes. His French Erard piano, from around 1885, possesses a chiming bass, a delicate yet resonant upper register, and a warm middle. It’s ideal for music that so often requires a fine brushstroke. Melnikov obliges, playing with exquisite restraint, control, and voicing as he whisks us to sun-drenched, humid India, the world of illustrator Arthur Rackham’s fairies and to a firework display, full of brilliant, nervous tension. Melnikov is joined by Olga Pashchenko for a thrilling performance of Debussy’s arrangement for four hands of his orchestral suite La Mer.

This marks the first release with Robin Ticciati leading the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, and it makes the requisite splash. There's a world premiere: even if you're not on board with the trend of enlarging the repertory through arrangements of works that are perfectly good in their original form, you will likely be seduced by mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená's ravishing reading of Debussy's voice-and-piano Ariettes oubliées, inventively arranged by Brett Dean. There's a little-known work: the opening one, Fauré's Prelude to Pénélope (a sparsely performed opera, with a slightly less sparsely performed prelude) is a lush and beautifully controlled arc. Controlled and detailed are two words that come to mind for Ticciati's interpretation of La mer, the warhorse work on the program; it may seem a bit deliberate, but there are many hues in his performance. The two Debussy works are balanced by two of Fauré's: the fourth work is the suite from Fauré's incidental music to Pélleas et Mélisande (in Charles Koechlin's version), also deliberate and lush. Linn recorded the performance in Berlin's Jesus Christus Kirche, which allows the full spectrum of orchestral colors to come through. Worth the money for Kozená fans for her turn alone, and a fine French program for all.

Having mysteriously disapeared from the current repertory over the past few decades, Gustave Samazeuilh left an attractive body piano works that has drawn the attention of Stéphane Lemelin. A student of Ernest Chausson until that composer's death, Samazeuilh entered the Schola Cantorum in 1900 and studied with Vincent D'Indy and Paul Dukas. Although he always remained faithful to the discipline of craftsmanship he acquired under D'Indy's tutelage, Samazeuilh's style is strongly influenced by Debussy and eschews the academic dryness which often characterizes the work of D'Indy's disciples.