Fauré - Cello Chamber Works |
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Artist:
Gaillard Fontaine
Average Customer Rating: 
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £6.11
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0822186001301
Label: Ambroisie / Naive
Manufacturer: Ambroisie / Naive
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: Ambroisie / Naive
Release Date: 2008-02-25
Running Time: 58
Studio: Ambroisie / Naive |
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Disc 1:
| 1. Elegy, op. 24 - Sonata No. 1, op. 109 | | 2. Allegro | | 3. Andante | | 4. Finale: allegro moderato | | 5. Romance, op. 69 | | 6. Papillon, op. 67 - Sonata No. 2, op. 117 | | 7. Allegro | | 8. Andante | | 9. Allegro vivo | | 10. Sicilienne, op. 78 | | 11. Aprés un rêve |
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Le Parfum impérissable, 2008-05-18
Comment: Fauré's musical fingerprints are so uniquely his that one can identify music as being by him even when one has never heard a particular piece before. Such was the case with the works on this CD of cello-and-piano music. One day I turned on the radio and heard the second movement of his First Sonata and knew immediately, although I'd never heard it before, that 'this has to be Fauré.' I listened through to the end of the sonata and realized that I wanted to own this CD by Ophélie Gaillard, cello, and Bruno Fontaine, piano. The disc contains both cello/piano sonatas and several of his salon pieces for cello with piano accompaniment. Indeed, it contains almost all of Fauré's music for this combination; the only thing missing is his Sérénade written for Casals. But it does include Casals' own arrangement of Fauré's beloved song 'Aprés un rêve.'
The First Sonata was written during the last year of World War I. The first movement is agitated and angular, the second is a meditative Andante whose melodic construction is vrai Fauré with long sinuous melodic tendrils that go on for paragraphs. The finale, written some months after the first two movements and when it appeared the war might be soon over, has the cello calm and reflective, generous in melodic warmth, while the piano accompaniment is, to borrow Eric Blom's word, murmuringly 'semiquaverish'. The Second Sonata, written in 1921 when Fauré was in his mid-seventies, evokes both calm and turbulent waters. The second movement was originally written as an occasional piece, 'Chant funéraire', used for the national French commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Napoleon's death. It is similar in feeling to that of 'Élégie', the piece that is heard first on this CD: tenderness, gentleness, regret, resignation. The finale is a joyous conclusion to one of Fauré's greatest late chamber works.
Among the salon pieces are 'Élégie', described above, the melancholy 'Romance', the fluttering 'Papillon', the antique 'Sicilienne' (arranged from Fauré's orchestral 'Pelléas et Mélisande' suite) and the gloriously radiant 'Aprés un rêve.' All these, as well as the sonatas, are played with grace and substance by Gaillard and Fontaine. It is of note that Gaillard plays an 1852 French cello made by Auguste Sebastien Philippe Bernardel ('Bernardel Père'), the sound of whose instruments must surely have been familiar to Fauré. Fontaine's piano is an exceedingly well-regulated modern Steinway.
Recommended for lovers of this literature and of cello/piano music in general.
Scott Morrison
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