Cellist Paul Marleyn and pianist Stéphane Lemelin continue their peregrinations within the French Romantic repertoire with a new opus on ATMA Classique. On the menu: three interesting rarities which would however have deserved a more intense commitment from the performers.
Posted yesterday at 6:30 p.m.
The two Canadians have already earned their spurs in the discovery and promotion of French musical heritage, notably as former members of the Trio Hochelaga. After paying homage to Dubois, Ropartz and Rhené-Baton, Lemelin and Marleyn set off to rummage through the catalogs of Édouard Lalo, Paul Lacombe and Fernand de La Tombelle.
Of the three, only Lalo (1823-1892) remained more or less in the repertoire with his spanish symphony. Composed in 1856 and dedicated to Anton Rubinstein, its vibrant Cello Sonata in A minor has already been the subject of a handful of recordings.
This is not the case for the other two authors on the program. Having always lived in his native Carcassonne, Paul Lacombe (1837-1927) nevertheless maintained close ties with the City of Light, thanks to his proximity to Saint-Saëns and Bizet. Her Sonata for piano and cello — and not “cello and piano”, as is more customary — was written in 1902 in honor of the great cello teacher Jules Loeb.
Born in the Château de Fayrac, Baron Fernand de La Tombelle learned the piano with his mother, a former pupil of Liszt. This jack-of-all-trades disciple of Saint-Saëns and Dubois was rewarded for his writings on sculpture and astronomy! Her Sonata for cello and pianodated 1901-1902, is dedicated to the cellist Gaston Courras, of the Paris Opera.
We are dealing here with three scores as well put together as they are inspired, which we would gladly hear more often instead of the endless sonatas of Chopin and Franck. Recorded at Domaine Forget during the summer of 2020, the disc benefits from a careful execution which would however have taken advantage of a more marked characterization of the musical material, in particular in the finales, of the allegros that the composers ask “con fuoco” (Lacombe ) or “vivace” (from La Tombelle).
Classic
Édouard Lalo, Paul Lacombe, Fernand de La Tombelle: sonatas for piano and cello
Paul Marleyn and Stephane Lemelin
ATMA Classic