Musique pour piano

Description

Coming from a bourgeois family, Cécile Chaminade benefited from her musical training with Benjamin Godard, as well as the support of composers such as Saint-Saëns and Chabrier. After some more or less successful attempts at composition in various genres (chamber music, a ballet, a concerto...), she quickly turned to the piano and composed nearly two hundred works for the instrument, along with about a hundred melodies that specifically belong to salon music. It is a small handful of these piano pieces that we (re)discover in this recording by English pianist Mark Viner, which complements the recordings by Peter Jacobs (Hyperion), Johan Blanchard (MDG), and Johanna Polke (Steinway & Sons). Salon music, indeed, but it exudes a certain charm under Mark Viner's delicate, virtuosic, yet understated touch. One forgets the geographical and stylistic proximity to Debussy, Ravel (and those mentioned above) to be invited into this well-kept bourgeois salon. Chaminade knows her classics (mainly Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn) and appropriates them with the right amount of detachment (Concert Studies op. 35, Romances sans paroles op. 76). While the Arabesque op. 61, with its outdated melody, has little to do with Debussy, Chabrier's influence is palpable throughout. Viner unfolds the voluble flow of this modest, evocative music with calm and elegance, rich in lasting fragrances. A somewhat superficial tenderness (op. 76 and 127), a few dances, a touch of folklore (Poème provençal, op. 127), and a Spanish flair (La Lisonjera op. 50) complete the charm. (Jérôme Angouillant)