CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862-1918) SOMMCD 0168 Images, Books I & II · L’Isle Joyeuse

MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Gaspard de la nuit · Jeux d’eau · La Valse DEBUSSY

ALESSANDRO TAVERNA piano Images, Books I & II L’Isle Joyeuse DEBUSSY RAVEL Images, Book I Gaspard de la nuit* 1 1. Reflets dans l’eau 5:23 8 1. Ondine 6:49 2 2. Hommage à Rameau 6:47 9 2. Le Gibet 6:48 RAVEL 3 3. Mouvement 3:36 bl 3. Scarbo 9:57 Gaspard de la nuit Images, Book II bm Jeux d’eau 5:36 Jeux d’eau 4 1. Cloches à travers les feuilles 4:16 bn La Valse* 12:27 5 2. Et la lune descend sur le temple 5:32 La Valse qui fut Total duration 77:41 6 3. Poissons d’or 4:19 *Recorded live at Turner Sims during 7 L’Isle Joyeuse 5:58 a recital on 16 January 2016

TURNER Recorded at Turner Sims, Southampton on 16 & 17 January 2017 SIMS Southampton Recording Producer: Siva Oke Recording Engineer: Paul Arden-Taylor ALESSANDRO Front Cover Photograph: Alessandro Taverna © Pierluigi Marchesan Design: Andrew Giles TAVERNA

© &  2017 SOMM RECORDINGS · THAMES DITTON · SURREY · ENGLAND piano DDD Made in the EU DEBUSSY and RAVEL to be a fount of inspiration, wherein pictures almost as much as I love music.’ PIANO MUSIC his piano music – as with many of his Not every one of Debussy or Ravel’s contemporaries – took the relatively mature masterpieces was inspired by In considering European music of the Debussy was 13 years Ravel’s senior, but recently-established transcendentalism visual stimuli, for it is their musical last half-millennium, one occasionally both composers came to prominence of the post-Lisztians as a sine qua genius that defines them not superficial encounters popular ‘pairings’ of around the same time – in the last years non, his writing for the instrument similarities that may have tended to composers, who, for reasons of of the 19th century – their subsequent demanding a virtuoso technique, but mislead earlier commentators. shared nationality or genre, or having careers, up until the first years of World necessarily restricting the practicalities been broadly contemporaneous, are War I, running concurrently, as music of performance. • perceived to be similar in outlook and for orchestra and for solo piano became Our notes accompanying the music musical language. Pairings – such as dominant for both composers. Equally, as with their fellow- begin with the first work in the recital Bach and Handel, Haydn and Mozart, Impressionists in visual art, both to be written, Ravel’s Jeux d’Eau. This for examples – can often be a useful It was undoubtedly their parallel output Debussy and Ravel explored the new dates from 1901, when the 26-year-old shorthand in making a point, but run in these genres, as well as their shared musical Impressionism – another was still ostensibly a student of Gabriel the risk of superficiality in terms of nationality, that led to them being connexion between them, but at heart Fauré, to whom the work was dedicated. overlooking their essential differences. ‘paired’ in the way earlier masters were, a superficial one – each in their own, It is, however, wholly representative of but later generations have learned quite different ways: Debussy as if Ravel’s mature style, and the Lisztian It is only through examining the totality their essential differences. For Debussy, through the half-lights and tints of influence we mentioned earlier is of a great composer’s output that his perhaps the more withdrawn artist, the Monet or Manet – and even, as in our nowhere more self-evident in Ravel’s individuality becomes apparent: such evolution of a fresh musical language recital, music directly inspired by the piano music than here, a work clearly considerations of course take time, and based upon the whole-tone scale 18th-century painter Jean-Antoine suggested by Liszt’s Les jeux d’eau à la it is fascinating to see how perceptions enabled him to probe more deeply Watteau, and Ravel as if by way of the Villa d’Este (which is found in the third of composers, once thought to be very into the inner feelings of his mind, a somewhat brighter representation book of the Années de pèlerinage). similar in outlook, have changed, as superfine creativity that often heard his of Sisley, Degas or Pisarro. There are later studies reveal aspects of their music inspired through visual terms; for exceptions to these broad rules in the Ravel explained the work’s origins: music that were previously either Ravel – half-Basque in his background work of both composers, of course, ‘Jeu d’eau begins the pianistic novelties overlooked or unknown, showing them – a no less sensitive composer, the but we have Debussy’s letter to Edgard which one may find in my work. This as quite different artistic equals. existing tonal framework continued Varèse of 1911 in which he wrote ‘I love piece, inspired by the noise of water

2 3 and by the musical sounds suggested by is Gaspard de la Nuit, fantaisies à la questioning the scene – Bertrand’s but although he did not follow that sprays, cascades, and brooks, is based manière de Rembrandt et de Callot, so poem itself begins with a quotation work with a ballet of similar length on two motifs as in a sonata movement for poet and composer the inspiration from Faust – as insect-like elements of and scope, his fascination with dance – without, however, having a classical was essentially visual, and the titles of life surround the hanging corpse. had certainly been broadened by tonal plan.’ the three movements of Ravel’s suite the experience – and by the success are taken directly from Bertrand. Scarbo is a goblin of the night, Daphnis enjoyed. Ravel later wrote on the manuscript unstoppable in energy and impish ‘Dieu fluvial riant de l’eau qui le In this work, Ravel takes post-Lisztian devilment, only occasionally pausing to Soon after war had broken out in chatouille...’ – a quotation from the transcendentalism to the limit; the first observe the nightmares his behaviour August 1914, Ravel volunteered to join French symbolist poet Henri de movement, Ondine, depicts the water- has caused before he is off again, the Army. At 39, he was not too old for Régnier’s Cité des eaux, which did not nymph singing seductively to entice frighteningly active until – at the very active service, but served as an artillery in fact appear until 1903, but which the listener to the depths of the lake in end – he virtually disappears into thin air, driver at Verdun, the privations of Ravel clearly felt put into words the which she dwells. The connotation of expressed in piano writing of which the which undermined his previously essence of Jeu d’eau – ‘The river God water in Ondine is reminiscent of that difficulties and technical demands bid robust health. After the War, Ravel laughs as the water tickles him...’ in Jeu d’eau, but in the later work the fair to surpass any Lisztian expectation. returned to composition, taking up an technical demands are greater as the idea he had harboured for almost 15 • drama is darker and more pronounced • years – a musical tribute to Vienna, a By the time of Ravel’s suite for throughout – clearly, the expression Both Ravel and (a little later) Debussy different city post-war to that which piano, Gaspard de la nuit: trios is more startling, more sudden and were commissioned by Serge Diaghilev had rivalled Paris at the dawn of the poèmes pour piano (1908), he was intense in its drama – most notably to compose music for his Ballets 20th century. widely regarded as a leading figure in the climactic outburst before the Russes. Ravel replied with Daphnis et in the younger generation of French closing pages wind the music down. Chloé, first performed in Paris in 1912, Ravel’s idea was to honour, musically, composers. The work takes its title later becoming better-known through the Vienna of the mid-19th century from a posthumously-published prose The second movement, Le Gibet, two concert suites extracted from it, – the Vienna of the Strauss dynasty poem, written in 1836, by Aloysius hauntingly depicts a gibbet in the although the complete score is now through the dance most closely Bertrand (1807-1841), which had a desert, holding the body of a hanged relatively frequently heard in concert. associated with the Austrian capital – great influence on the later Symbolist man, and a bell in the distance marks Daphnis et Chloé clearly established the waltz – the title, La valse, becoming poets. The full title of Bertram’s work the inexorable passing of time as if Ravel’s credentials as a ballet composer, his first post-war composition.

4 5 Now discharged from the Army, and never produced the score as a ballet, roots in classical forms albeit expressed The work’s tripartite structure opens fully established – since Debussy’s and was not a little miffed when it in textures inbued with (as Edward with a scene-setting passage of great death in 1918 – as the leading French soon became a popular concert item, Sackville-West wrote almost seventy brilliance which eventually leads to composer, Ravel conceived La valse as yet the Russian did describe Ravel’s years ago) ‘constant effects of colour, a lyrical secondary idea, perhaps a ballet score, originally giving it the score as ‘a masterpiece.’ of shadow and of light, which form his expressing the couple’s tender affections title Vienne. An interesting aspect of unique contribution to music’. before the more vivid foreground Ravel’s career as a composer was his Diaghilev was right on both counts: returns, the exhilaration of the others habit of orchestrating several of his lacking a story, and lasting less than Composed in 1903-04, Debussy’s L’i sle almost tangible as the breathless solo piano works, effectively making fifteen minutes, La valse is not a joyeuse (The Happy Island) is a brilliant coda brings to an end Debussy’s most one work fulfil the functions of two, but ballet in the traditional sense, being evocation in tone of the composer’s extrovert and thrilling work for solo he did not produce orchestral versions more evocative of one: it is certainly a fount of inspiration – Jean-Antoine piano, a masterpiece reaffirming his of either Jeu-d’eau or of Gaspard. In masterpiece. Ravel later explained the Watteau’s painting L’Embarquement individual genius. La valse the habit was reversed: first background to the work: pour Cythère (The Embarcation for written as a brilliant orchestral score, Cythera). Cythera (or Kythira) is the • Ravel then produced the version for ‘Set in an Imperial court, about 1855, Greek island regarded as the legendary The undoubted achievement of L’ i s l e solo piano we hear in this recital. through whirling clouds, waltzing birthplace of Venus, the goddess of love. joyeuse led Debussy to extend his mastery couples may be faintly distinguished. Watteau’s painting depicts a couple, of the medium on a larger canvas, once Once more, keyboard technical The clouds gradually scatter: one clearly lovers, close by a statue of Venus, more in a three-movement work, difficulties did not deter him, for sees an immense hall peopled with a as a group is seen approaching a golden Images – première livre, composed in he had previously made a version whirling crowd. The scene is gradually boat in which they are to depart. 1904-5, succeeding two earlier tripartite for two pianos, which he and the illuminated until the light of the cycles Pour le piano (1901) and Estampes Spanish composer Alfredo Casella had chandeliers bursts forth.’ Debussy centres the piece upon the (1903), but which in some ways premiered. But in reducing four hands key of A major, the intensity of the reaffirms his developmental use of the to two, Ravel produced a demanding • music reflecting the enchantment of whole-tone scale. solo piano work of considerable If Ravel could be described as the first the island, the warm sunshine, and difficulty. In the event, La valse 20th-century metropolitan French perhaps the sheer animation of life In this first book of Images, the title of became the work that led to the break composer par excellence, Debussy’s itself. Debussy’s piano writing here is the first movement, Reflets dans l’eau, between Ravel and Diaghilev, who more distant muse may have had its as demanding as anything by Ravel. cannot but help recall Ravel’s Jeux d‘eau

6 7 but any similarities are superficial, for Philippe Rameau being one of the leaves), is a reference to an experience close, Debussy’s invention perfectly the ‘reflections’ are, of course, in the greatest French composers of the 18th Debussy encountered at the great Paris encapsulating the unusual sonorities nature of an extended contemplation. century, the Sarabande a slow and Exposition Universelle of 1900, which through his adoption of the whole- In this first piece, the developmental stately evocation of the period. was visited by over 50 million people, tone scale. growth Debussy extracts from a tiny and which saw the effective launch three-note nucleus is remarkable – yet The Hommage is the longest movement of the style Art nouveau. The musical The title of the second piece, Et la this is no technical exercise: it is a living in either Book of Images (Debussy experience that struck Debussy very lune descend sur le temple qui fut organism existing in time, spreading went on to compose a second set, in strongly was his first encounter with (And the Moon sets over the Temple outwards, the personification in 1906). To close the first Book, the non- Javanese music, most significantly that was), reinforces the Symbolist musical terms of what Debussy Impressionist title Mouvement brings the gamelan, which long haunted influence upon Debussy’s art, setting explained to the pianist Marguerite the technical aspects of keyboard his imagination. The image of tolling the listener’s imagination free to Long as ‘a little circle in water with a writing to the fore, the three-notes of bells perceived through the leaves wander as the musical suggestions of little pebble falling into it.’ As ripples the firstImage becoming an ostinato, of a group of trees is wonderfully religious contemplation of Far Eastern spread – as if across a lake – the music a subtly delicate evocation of constant conveyed in purely musical terms, for, civilisations are conjured up in this expands to a climax before subsiding movement – as a will-o’-the-wisp, rather as Debussy later wrote of the Javanese, magnificent work. once more. than a blustery storm: a magnificent describing ‘a race of delightful people conception of musical thought, brought who learnt music as easily as we learn The final movement, Poissons d’or A little-appreciated fact of early off with a virtuosity that remains an to breathe. Their academy is the (Goldfish), is arguably the most popular 20-century musical history is the re- astonishing achievement. eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind in of all six of the Images – musically discovery, in its early decades, of the the leaves, thousands of tiny sounds perfectly encapsulating the goldfish as music of the classical period, which in • which they hear attentively whilst they stop momentarily before darting turn gave rise to the post-World War Two years after completing the first never consulting treatises.’ this way and that, idly musing over I neo-classical movement. Debussy’s book, Debussy planned Images, what to do next, their inherent elegance Hommage à Rameau “in the style of deuxième livre, each of the three In this piece, the imagination of apparent to all. a Sarabande” is one of the earliest movements having a title more closely the attentive listener is given full examples of such stylisation (which related to Impressionism. The title rein from the simple opening to an Ravel was later to embody in his of the first piece in Book II, Cloches ever-increasing complexity as the Robert Matthew-Walker suite Le Tombeau de Couperin), Jean- a travers les feuilles (Bells among the initial atmosphere returns at the © 2017

8 9 ALESSANDRO TAVERNA Taverna teaches at the Conservatory of Music in Campobasso and at the Music Academy Santa Cecilia in Portogruaro.

Alessandro Taverna established his international career by winning top prizes at For his artistic achievements and his international career, in 2012 he was awarded the Minnesota Piano-e-Competition, London International Piano Competition, Leeds Premio Presidente della Repubblica by Italian State President Giorgio Napolitano. International Piano Competition and Busoni Piano Competition in Bolzano. Since then he has gone on to perform in some of the most important concert halls and A documentary on his life was shown on BBC4. He has also recorded for BBC seasons including Teatro alla Scala Milan, Musikverein Vienna, Berlin Konzerthaus, Radio 3, Rai Radio 3, Slovenian National Radio and Television, RSI Swiss Munich Gasteig, Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London, Bridgewater Radiotelevision. Hall Manchester, Salle Cortot in Paris, Philharmonic Hall Liverpool, Castleton Festival, Musashino Hall in Tokyo, Auditorium Parco della Musica Rome.

His success has led to many engagements with the most prestigious orchestras including Filarmonica della Scala, Münchner Philharmoniker, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, Bucharest Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber, Orchestra of the Accademia Teatro alla Scala, Philharmonic Orchestra of Bergamo and Brescia Festival, working with conductors including Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Fabio Luisi, Daniel Harding, Michele Mariotti, Reinhard Goebel, Thierry Fischer, Michael Guttman, Pier Carlo Orizio. The London Keyboard Trust has presented him in recitals in Europe and in the United States.

Our discs are available worldwide from all good record shops. In case of difficulty and A native of Venice, he has studied with Laura Candiago Ferrari at Santa Cecilia for further information please contact us direct: SOMM Recordings, Sales & Marketing Dept., Music Foundation in Portogruaro and with Franco Scala at Imola International 13 Riversdale Road, Thames Ditton, Surrey, KT7 0QL, UK. Tel: +(0)20-8398 1586. Fax: +(0)20-8339 0981. Piano Academy. He later specialized at the Hochschule für Musik in Hannover Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.somm-recordings.com WARNING Copyright subsists in all Somm Recordings. Any unauthorised broadcasting, public performance, copying, rental or with Arie Vardi, at Santa Cecilia National Music Academy in Rome with Sergio re-recording thereof in any manner whatsoever will constitute an infringement of such copyright. In the United Kingdom licences for the Perticaroli and at the Lake Como Piano Academy. use of recordings for public performance may be obtained from Phonographic Performance Ltd., 1 Upper James Street, London W1R 3HG

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