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Piano Concerto (2013) EMMANUEL DESPAX PIANO Stephen Goss (b. 1964) The Fanfare, (a portrayal of the Longchamp Store SAINT-SAËNS GOSS FRANCK in Manhattan) is a cityscape that frames I Fanfare exploratory cadenzas for the pianist with brass II Moto perpetuo chorales and flourishes. This leads without a III Adagio break to a Moto perpetuo which captures the Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.22 Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) IV Finale sparkling beauty of Bleigiessen, an eight- storey-high sculpture made from thousands of 1 I. Andante sostenuto [11.56] A recurring theme running through the music glass beads hung on wires. Here, the delicate, 2 II. Allegro scherzando [6.01] of Stephen Goss is the evocation of time and continuous solo part generates glittering 3 III. Presto [6.53] place. His work on musical landscape dates reflections rendered in varied orchestral hues. back to two collaborations with Charles Jencks, Piano Concerto Stephen Goss (b.1964) The Garden of Cosmic Speculation (2005) The heart of the concerto is a spacious slow (which was featured on the South Bank Show) movement evoking the tranquility of the Seed 4 I. Fanfare [4.31] and Frozen Music (2006) (commissioned for the Cathedral – a striking structure that housed 5 II. Moto Perpetuo [4.15] opening season of the Menuhin Hall). More 60,000 plant seeds at the ends of long, flexible 6 III. Adagio [14.12] recent projects include his critically acclaimed acrylic rods. The Adagio is tinged with a 7 IV. Finale [5.44] album Northern Lights (2010), The Flower of bittersweet nostalgia and characterized by a Cities (2012) for John Williams and Friends, romantic freedom that contrasts sharply with 8 Variations symphoniques César Franck (1822-1890) [15.22] and Portraits and Landscapes (2010), Steve’s the highly rhythmic movements surrounding first piece for Emmanuel Despax. it. The Finale is a compelling, virtuosic tour de force that switches between four distinct moods, Total timings: [68.56] The Piano Concerto was inspired by the ‘bright and energetic’, ‘hard and brittle’, ‘dark’, extraordinary design work of the Heatherwick and ‘hot blues’. The impetus was the sculpture Studio, whose Olympic Cauldron was a centrepiece B of the Bang, an abstract depiction of the Emmanuel Despax Piano at the London 2012 Games. Each of the four explosion of the starting pistol in a track running Orpheus Sinfonia movements takes a particular Heatherwick race. Accented chords on xylophone and pizzicato Thomas Carroll Conductor project as a starting point before opening out strings suggest the large metallic structure; a to reveal other landscapes and related ideas. 56-metre-high cluster of tapered steel rods. The www.signumrecords.com - 3 - opening gesture provides the movement with Handel, Rameau, Gluck, and Mozart. Apart from being by happenstance. Saint-Saëns wrote it the Mendelssohn manner – much as the a powerful momentum that remains relentless this – and most important of all – he was also in a mere three weeks in the spring of 1868, Frenchman’s long-finished but not-yet-published throughout. a prolific and prodigiously talented composer for a Paris concert being given by the Russian Second Symphony had been – although the in his own right. After the French defeat in the composer, pianist and conductor Anton second theme in the second movement of the Stephen Goss’s Piano Concerto was commissioned Franco-Prussian War, Saint-Saëns became one Rubinstein. Saint-Saëns had suggested that he concerto anticipates the Carnival des animaux, by Stuart Mitchell Capital for Emmanuel Despax. of the leaders of a movement to strike back should provide a novelty in the shape of a new still two decades down the road. The first performance took place at Cadogan Hall, at the enemy culturally. He was one of the piano concerto which he himself would play. London, on 25th April 2013. founders of the Société Nationale de Musique, The concert took place in the Salle Pleyel on The finale is a presto tarantella in 2/2 time, intended to give performances of works 6th May, with Rubinstein conducting and whose G minor tonality reminds us that exclusively by living French composers. He aimed Saint-Saëns as soloist, and the new work was Mendelssohn ended his “Italian” Symphony Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.22 (1868) to re-establish French art, particularly by not exactly a success with critics and public, 35 years earlier with a minor-key tarantella. If Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) displaying excellence in the ‘abstract’ forms but within a few years it was a firm favourite. Saint-Saëns’ premiere audience was not of symphony, concerto, sonata and chamber immediately cordial – Parisians had become Variations symphoniques (1885) music, which the Germans had dominated for Gabriel Fauré, a pupil of Saint-Saëns at the as exasperatingly superficial as the Viennese – César Franck (1822-1890) nearly a century. time, remembered years later that he had shown Franz Liszt praised the Second Concerto without his teacher a Tantum ergo setting. Saint-Saëns stint, saying that it pleased him “singularly”. Not “He knows everything, but he lacks inexperience” Saint-Saëns wrote five piano concertos in all, glanced at it hurriedly, then said, “Give this to for the first time, nor for the last, was his praise was Hector Berlioz’s paradoxical verdict on the but it is Piano Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.22 me. I can make something of it!” What emerged prescient. Later on, of course, Parisian audiences young Saint-Saëns, whose dazzling quickness which has remained by far the best-known. was the main theme of the first movement let everyone believe they’d loved it from the start. of mind – he started composing at the age of It was the pianist Sigismond Stojowski who (Andante sostenuto) of the new G minor Piano three, gave his first public piano recital at ten, quipped that it “begins as Bach, but ends as Concerto, following a solo improvisation in One of the glitterati of the French music scene, entered the Paris Conservatoire at 13, and was Offenbach”, but in fact the concerto’s unusual the manner of Bach to get things started. A Louis Diémer (1843-1919) had taken the piano a keen student of the Latin classics, astronomy, trajectory from solemnity to high jinks, with no gentler sub-theme (the composer’s own) has a part in Franck’s Victor Hugo-inspired Les Djinns, geology and archaeology – certainly testified to slow movement but instead a central scherzo, Chopinesque flavor, especially in its keyboard for piano and orchestra, on 15th March 1885; an old head on young shoulders. As performer, is surely what has endeared it to audiences up embroidery in thirds. he earned for the composer a rare plaudit from editor and publicist he was an advocate of to the present day. It is a striking instance of the press: “interesting work... for the direct the latest musical trends of Schumann, Liszt Saint-Saëns’ famous facility of technique and Like Saint-Saëns’ opening movement and Finale, originality of its thought and the admirable and Wagner and at the same time a campaigner inspiration, and as sometimes occurs with works an Allegro scherzando in between is written in polish of its style.” The Ménestral’s critic for the almost-forgotten masters such as Bach, of distinction and character, it only came into sonata form. The spirit is nonetheless elfin, in continued: “As I listened to the fine logic of - 4 - - 5 - these developments and the arresting effects chant montagnard française (1886) and in turn, 30 of the following year – again featuring Cadogan Hall. Emmanuel is also a regular of the blending of the piano with the orchestra, be adopted as far afield as Ferruccio Busoni’s Diémer – the surefire misfired as the aging performer at Wigmore Hall. I was struck by the thought of how sad it is massive five-movement Piano Concerto (1904). conductor, Jules Pasdeloup, miscued the that the name of this eminent musician is so orchestra’s entrance. In his native France he has appeared in rarely seen on programmes, too little honoured The strings open with a menacing dotted figure prestigious venues such as Paris’s Salle at a time when he is one of the masters of our in unison, answered by the piano with a © 2013 Malcolm MacDonald Gaveau, the Louvre auditorium and La Roque epoch, and will indubitably remain one.” plaintively drooping phrase whose dialogue d’Anthéron. Elsewhere in Europe he has given gives way to a second theme introduced by recitals at the Fazioli Auditorium in Italy, the This proved prophetic. Franck was delighted pizzicato woodwinds and strings. An appasionato EMMANUEL DESPAX Gasteig Blackbox in Munich and the Palais des and credited his success to Diémer’s brilliant development leads shortly to six seamless Beaux Arts in Belgium. playing – sec, léger, and articulated with lightning variations on the second theme through which “Poetry fused with breathtaking technical precision – which he promised to reward with the piano decorates, comments, alludes, perfection” (Concertclassic) and “A master- At 13 he gained a place at the Yehudi “a little something”. Good to his word, Franck and accompanies, as the mood shifts from colourist with genius-like ability” (Classical Menuhin School where Ruth Nye, one of dedicated his orchestration of the Variations triumphant assertion to mystical absorption Source) is how the brilliant young French pianist Claudio Arrau’s finest students, recognized symphoniques to Diémer. He began work in and languishing, muted sighs. A sudden trill Emmanuel Despax was described after his his talent and had a profound effect on the summer of 1885, and completed it on 12th in both hands, two octaves apart, prompts the recent acclaimed recitals at the Louvre Emmanuel’s developing musicality.