Gounod the Complete Works for Pedal Piano & Orchestra
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Romantic Piano Concerto ~ 62 Gounod The complete works for pedal piano & orchestra Concerto pour piano à pédalier Suite concertante Fantaisie sur l’hymne national russe Danse roumaine Roberto Prosseda ORCHESTRA DELLA SVIZZERA ITALIANA Howard Shelley s s a V l e i n á D © ROBERTO PROSSEDA at the pedal piano (two Steinway D grand pianos and the Pinchi pedal piano system) during the recording sessions 2 CONTENTS TRACK LISTING page 4 ENGLISH page 5 FRANÇAIS page 13 DEUTSCH Seite 17 3 The Romantic Piano Concerto ~ 62 CHARLES GOUNOD (1818–1893) The complete works for pedal piano and orchestra Suite concertante in A major (1886) .............. [22'59] 1 Entrée de fête: Moderato maestoso .............................. [6'32] 2 Chasse: Allegro con fuoco .................................... [7'08] 3 Romance: Andante cantabile .................................. [5'49] 4 Tarentelle: Vivace .......................................... [3'31] Concerto for pedal piano in E flat major (1889) ... [19'47] 5 Allegro moderato .......................................... [4'29] 6 Scherzo ................................................. [3'36] 7 Adagio ma non troppo ....................................... [7'23] 8 Allegretto marziale (pomposo) ................................. [4'19] 9 Fantaisie sur l’hymne national russe (1885) ...... [8'36] bl Danse roumaine (1888) ............................. [4'32] ROBERTO PROSSEDA pedal piano ORCHESTRA DELLA SVIZZERA ITALIANA HOWARD SHELLEY conductor 4 HE RESOURCES OF THE PEDAL PIANO, designed paraphrase of Alexey L’vov’s anthem God Save the Tsar to allow organists to practise outside church, was premiered on 16 November at the Salons Érard in Twere turned to advantage by Schumann, Liszt, Paris by Lucie Palicot, its dedicatee, with the composer and especially Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813–1888), who accompanying her on a standard piano. The orchestral gave virtuoso performances in the salons of the piano version received its first performance under the direction manufacturer Érard. Gounod was present there in 1875 to of Édouard Colonne at the Théâtre du Châtelet on 23 hear him premiere a Fantaisie by Saint-Saëns. Just ten February 1886. We do not know what opportunity or years later, having given up operatic composition for sacred reasons of friendship may have prompted Gounod to music (masses, oratorios) and the instru mental repertory choose this theme. (the Petite symphonie, string quartets), Gounod himself After a brassy introduction, a condensed synthesis of wrote four works for the pedal piano. These pieces the anthem, the piano states its two sections, then repeats representative of his late style were inspired by the talent of them with the orchestra enriched by virtuoso pedal the young Lucie Palicot (born circa 1860), a pupil of playing. A second exposition follows the same principle of Alexandre Guilmant on the organ and Élie Delaborde on contrast of colour and texture, but now it is the brass, not the piano. The latter, who was the natural son of Alkan, the piano, that alternates with the full orchestra while the may have guided her towards the study of the pedal piano soloist presents a countermelody in semiquavers, some - at a time when his father was renouncing public times on the pedal-board and sometimes on the keyboard. performance. On 6 March 1882, Lucie Palicot played music The development introduces more numerous modu- by Bach, Alkan and Guilmant at the Salle Pleyel. lations. It is based on a broken four-note motif ‘à la Bach’ The visual spectacle was as appealing as the talent of that eventually takes on the form of a fugal subject. The the artist. The musicologist Paul Landormy later recalled climax comes with a varied restatement of the hymn by the scene: ‘I remember what a strange impression was the entire orchestra, supported by piano arpeggios and produced by the sight of this graceful and dainty person brightened by the glittering sound of the triangle. The perched on a huge case containing the lower strings of conclusion, though deploying all the pomp called for by the the pedal-board beneath a grand piano resting on the context, is none the less coherent for that. aforementioned case; and what surprised us above all, More personal and of another stature altogether is the pleasantly enough to be sure, was to see Mme Palicot Suite concertante in A major, completed in early spring wearing a short knee-length skirt (entirely necessary, but 1886. Its premiere in Bordeaux on 17 March 1887 was astonishing in those days), and her pretty legs darting most followed by a second performance at the Royal adroitly to reach the different pedals of the keyboard she Philharmonic Society in London on 23 April, while in Paris had at her feet, very similar to an organ pedal-board.’ Lucie the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire had to abandon Palicot (née Schneckenburger) seems to have given up a projected performance because the firm of Pleyel-Wolf her career in 1895 when she embarked on her second anticipated needing forty minutes to set up the instrument marriage, to David Gilmon Henderson. and twenty to remove it. The Fantaisie sur l’hymne national russe dates The score is conceived as a sweeping fresco, giving pride from 1885. Completed towards mid-September, this of place to clarity, simplicity and a wholesome brio. After 5 the neoclassical flavour of the opening tutti, Entrée de fête, The piano leads the way in the Tarentelle, for the a deliciously frivolous motif precedes the reprise of the first orchestra seems merely to cling to its coat-tails. When the theme by the soloist. But this restatement is elliptical flutes and clarinets, in flowing parallel thirds, impose and modulatory, leading to a succession of parallel sixth Cmajor over a double pedal point, the effect is like a ray chords that introduce the second theme: a long flowing, of sunshine that increases the tension: modulations, undulating melody sung by the left hand. crescendo, chromaticisms, rapid exchanges between the The evocation of the hunt in the horns and strings of sections of the orchestra and the soloist up to an imposing the Chasse is thoroughly realistic. The piano takes up these fortissimo over 6–4 harmonies that are maintained formulas and soon launches into galloping figuration. A virtually until the conclusion. harsh ‘mort’ on the pedal-board gives the signal for a On 4 September 1888 Gounod wrote to his wife: ‘All at second crescendo, grimmer and more concise, modulating once I have come up with two pieces that will do nicely for and rising to fortissimo. Then the strings establish a my little Palicote [sic] this winter: one is a Chorale and meditative mood. The piano responds with a cantabile Toccata [this has not been not located], the other a theme in almost choral style, shifting curiously from the concertante Danse roumaine with orchestra that will fill religious to the galant. The orchestra takes up the out her repertoire somewhat, and I am sure that our good cantabile theme, accompanied by arpeggios from the Mme Desgenétais will give her the opportunity to play them soloist. Anguished tremolos bring back the hunting motif, at her soirées.’ One hesitates to link this inspiration with which bursts forth in a fortissimo tutti. This recurrence of the advent of a ravishingly beautiful Romanian singer, the initial motif is the starting point for a true development Hariclea Darclée, who was scheduled to sing Juliette at the in which the full forces are deployed. Opéra. A chain of modulating arpeggiated chords provides a The Danse roumaine was premiered in Paris by Lucie transition to the Romance. A long introverted clarinet Palicot during the winter of 1888–9, when the composer theme, prolonged and intensified by the strings, prepares informs us it was encored, but it remains unpublished. the entry of the piano. It is tempting to consider the central The work is cast in sonata form with an orchestral section as an ornamented free variation of the opening introduction that outlines the themes. Then a furious theme, in which the soloist emerges from the amiably toccata for pedal-board alone sweeps the orchestra along supportive orchestra in a highly Mozartian style of pianism. with it, and the first theme—a simple cell, energetic and Halfway through, the accompaniment is reduced to almost piquant, in D minor without leading note—makes its no more than the Alberti bass in the violas. Thus, when the appearance. It has a whiff of eastern Europe about it, no violins take up the opening theme of the first section, it more than that. Modulating variations lead to the second seems natural that the piano should accompany it with theme, which runs up and down the scale of F major in that same Alberti bass, as in Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ dotted rhythms, supported by a viola countermelody. Concerto. The cadenza, which extends over a tonic pedal in A furious outburst from the piano launches the the horns, sets the ethereal piano against the melancholy development: a folk-like motif combining woodwind and song of the lower woodwind in one of those valedictory percussion frames further exchanges on the opening motif atmospheres whose secret Gounod found in Mozart. of the first theme; the latter’s reappearance heralds a 6 The pedal-board of the Pinchi pedal piano system © Dániel Vass recapitulation in which the second theme, introduced by struggle between them will form the material for this trumpet calls, undergoes considerable development until second, more modulatory development. A disguised the advent of a vigorous coda. recapitulation brings back the second theme, followed by a The Concerto for pedal piano in E flat major final development. remained unpublished because Gounod, finding that the A modulating introduction on the orchestra, then the cost of hiring the parts for the Suite concertante hindered piano, opens the brisk, piquant Scherzo. The solo piano its diffusion, gave sole ownership of this new work to presents the initial strain of the first part of the movement, Lucie Palicot in September 1889, thus guaranteeing her in which keyboard and pedal-board interact in imitation.