Simon Trpceski, Brahms, Ravel, Poulenc (Wigmore Hall Live)I don't know how much of a recent trend it is to release concert recitals or if I've just noticed more of them. It is to be encouraged and has a number of advantages over and above saving on studio time. There is a ready-made performance, organic and coherent, without the suspicion that you are listening to an amalgam of a dozen performances spliced together for their best bits to create something more perfect except that it never existed. The premise of pop 'live' albums was presumably to capture the energy and atmosphere of the gig but it could be at the expense of sound quality and one doesn't necessarily want to pay to hear the audience. There are no such concerns with a piano recital at the Wigmore Hall.
This one was on July 19, 2014. It begins gently, and thus quite daringly, with 3 Intermezzi op 117 by Brahms, which is remarkable for its understatement and charm. You'd probably recognize the first piece, or does it just sound like Faure. But, unlike that difficult decision that orchestras have, about what to play before the concerto and the symphony, this is a brilliant int
roduction.
The main feature is the same composer's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. I wouldn't have put those two composers together- in the same way that Vaughan Williams and Tallis don't seem to belong either- but that is where it's interest begins. The statement of Handel's theme is soon merged into something entirely Brahms, or even Schubert, and goes on its various adventures, before returning back home to Handel. Being op.24, it is presumably an early work and the sleeve notes feature a picture of Brahms not in the usual figure of elderly sage with a long beard but quite an imposing young man. The story that he destroyed a lot of his music because he didn't think it compared with Beethoven is a sad one. There would be precious little published since if we all took that attitude but one could put these variations alongside the Diabelli and they wouldn't suffer. They are 26 minutes of sure-footed invention and the disc is justified for the Brahms alone.
Ravel was a favourite composer of mine when I was a teenager - the Pavane, Bolero, and all that impressionism, notwithstanding the Concerto for Left Hand and the orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures. I don't feel the need to return to him very often now although note that it is a sonata of his that Emmanuelle Beart is working on in Un Coeur en Hiver, and that is worth a lot.
The Valse nobles and sentimentales drifts between moods too much for my liking, one minute suggesting light on water, then flirting with ragtime, from hesitancy to something more strident. Much preferable from roughly this time and place in the history of music are the John McCabe recordings of Erik Satie and, with no disrespect to Simon Trpceski's work here, I'd take them every time.
Poulenc has become a bit of a C20th favourite, mainly on the basis of some great choral music. The concert ends with nine short pieces, called Novelettes, Improvisations and a Toccata. We are brought back to some, more organized composition and thoughtful playing with these attractive pieces, including the ravishing lines of Hommage a Edith Piaf, and the Toccata ends with a flourish. But one can't help but think that the Brahms has been bookended by pieces of less consequence. It's a fine disc, though, and only makes one wish that, if we had world enough and time, every concert of such worth was available in the same way and all we had to, and all that we did have to do, was listen to them.
