The pianist Alexandre Tharaud has distinguished himself above all as an interpreter of baroque (Rameau, Couperin, etc.) or modern French music. His integrals of Ravel’s solo piano music and Poulenc’s chamber music are authoritative. But the musician had also pleasantly surprised with a record dedicated to Rachmaninoff five years ago. Here it is with a new well-crafted opus dedicated to Schubert from Erato.
The program is original: between two milestones in the Schubertian keyboard catalog, the Impromptu, D. 899, and Musical moments, D. 780, are interspersed with four transcriptions of extracts from the ballet Rosamunde made by Tharaud himself (magnificent Opening !). The well-known (the Impromptu particularly popular with young pianists) thus rubs shoulders with the relatively new.
So what does the French musician have to bring to an already bloated discography? Alexandre Tharaud’s Schubert is not a dreamy Schubert, like that of Claudio Arrau or, more recently, of Philippe Cassard. The speech is always voluntary. The first Impromptu testifies to this, whose indication “molto moderato” seems to have been crossed out by the musician in favor of that of “allegro”.
We hear a Schubert in the voluble manner of French harpsichordists. This does not exclude (and even implies) moments of pure suspension, such as the resumption of the chorus in Impromptu no 3 or in Moment musical no 2.
Tharaud does not play “big” piano. In the turbulent musical Moment no 5, the pianist favors lightness when others take out their big hooves. In the no 3 of the same notebook, he prefers the song with the sparkling side that others accentuate.
The pianist occasionally reveals to us lesser-known recesses of these scores, especially in the left hand, highlighting the eighth notes that most performers hide in the fog of the right hand (Impromptu no 3), there interesting staccatos (Musical moment no 4).
The disc was recorded last May at the Siemens-Villa, in Berlin, on a magnificent Steinway. The sound recording, quite close, can however attack in some strong.
A tonic Schubert to acquire in addition to the reference versions of Alfred Brendel.
Classical music
Schubert – Impromptus D899 Musical moments D780
Alexandre tharaud
Erato