Concertos pour harpe

Description

In a different way than the box sets published by the music magazine that "sets the tone" and selects the best interpretations of a given composer's works, the "thematic" box sets crafted by BRILLIANT are very clever tools, especially since the criteria on which they are designed are cross-referenced and multiple: an instrument plus a genre, a genre plus a specific time period and/or a country, a historical musical hub, etc. This provides the music lover with what Lacan might have called their "musical object little by little." It is particularly delightful to have a chronologically ordered panorama of concertos that are not easy to catalog on one's own, dedicated to an instrument that is sometimes hastily considered marginal and carries connotations that are not necessarily always favorable: the modern harp, already with pedals, in this case. Well-known pages, lesser-known ones, and almost unknown pieces, along with a wide array of European performers, fill this archive and invite many discoveries. Among others, there is the concerto by von Dittersdorf, delicate and blossoming, that of Albrechtsberger which innocently combines the harp with brass, or Dussek, evoking a slightly post-Mozartian Papageno. A very contrasting Reinecke, the motoric, biting, and incisive concerto by Ginastera, as well as that of Lutoslawski, where two soloists, harp and oboe, vigorously engage with an orchestra that, from all sides, showcases a sound invention with colors that are alternately violent, lyrical, flat, dramatic, or grotesque. Overall, the interpretations are quite commendable. (Bertrand Abraham)