Pascal Gallet

Since the latter half of the 80 s, Pascal Rogé, who has been actively involved in Poulenc's works, has collaborated with Duboscq of Soprano, a Kashu Maille from Bariton, to record his sophisticated songs composed for poems under Apollinaire. An album that allows you to get drunk with delicate accompaniment and unquoted beautiful voices.

Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963) enjoys an audience for his works for the stage and for the solo piano but his grander works are usually reserved for special 'theme events' by our orchestras. This recording repairs that omission by offering three disparate works for solo instrument and orchestra. And the performances are first rate! Pascal Roge delivers the 'Piano Concerto in C sharp minor' with all the ping and tongue in cheek fun so identified with Poulenc's music. He is joined by Charles Dutoit conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra of London in a collaborative event that respects the surging melodic statements so often missing in Poulenc's concerto performances.

In the music of Erik Satie, the sublime and the ridiculous reside in such tantalizingly close proximity that it's useless to try to separate them–which may, after all, be the point. For example, what can one say about 'Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear' other than there are really seven of them and regardless what fruit they may sound or look like they comprise a set of dances as disarming as any in piano literature? Fortunately, the case is well made in the performances of Pascal Rogé and Jean-Philippe Collard, who bring just the right balance of lightness and weight, wit, and beauty and plainness to the music.

This excellent disc brings together, as far as I know, all of Ravel's chamber music for the violin with various one-instrument accompaniment (and in the case of the sonata for violin and cello not merely accompaniment). It is, quite simply, a delight from beginning to end. To start with the shorter works, the Kaddisch and Berceuse are poignantly played and the Habanera is lightly and subtly varied in texture and color. Juillet's singing, smooth tone is as deliciously perfect as I could possibly imagine, and the playing is, even more importantly, exquisitely phrased.

Japanese label Triton has released a Pascal Rogé album with a rather remarkable program; Crystal Dream features the eminent French pianist in a program that interweaves short piano pieces by Erik Satie with others written by contemporary Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu, mostly pieces drawn from his Pleiades Dances. Both composers employ relatively simple melodic concepts harmonized with elegant, though elemental, kinds of accompaniments, so perhaps the combination makes sense. On the other hand, Satie never lived into the age of rock-based pop music, his engagement with the popular consisting mainly of French music hall tunes, and later in life, a sort of half-understood perception of ragtime rhythm. Yoshimatsu, however, would not be Yoshimatsu if it weren't for his strong connection to pop, though admittedly in Satie's case the pop group Blood, Sweat & Tears' adaptation of his Gymnopédie No. 1 once earned Satie a Grammy-winning single. Either way, one might wonder "how does this combination-slash-conversation work?"