Three years after releasing her first solo album, devoted to French harpsichord music, Mélisande McNabney has just given birth to a second opus, this time composed of Germanic fantasies for 18th century keyboard.and century played on the pianoforte. An undeniable success.
Posted at 9:30 a.m.
The young woman has, so to speak, become the “Madame pianoforte” of Quebec in recent years. It is she who is in a way the owner of the instrument that the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City had built by the American specialist Rodney Regier, an instrument that she occasionally plays solo or with the Violons du Roy. .
It is naturally towards this same maker, who is at the origin of the new toy recently inaugurated at Bourgie Hall, that she turned to have her own pianoforte, inspired by the instruments of Anton Walter (late 18thand century), which we hear on the record.
Mélisande McNabney organizes her program around two important figures of keyboard music from the second half of the Enlightenment, namely Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Mozart, looking a little backwards (the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor of CPE’s father) and forward (a Prelude in E flat by the Bohemian Leopold Koželuch published in 1798). As at the time, the musician inserts modulating bridges, from Mozart or from her own vintage.
And the game is wonderful. Unlike too many colleagues, Mr.me McNabney grasped very well the meaning of the word “fantasy”, which is from the same root as “fantastic”. Fantasy is the realm of freedom, of unpredictability even.
In JS Bach, but also in the immense Fantasy in C minorK. 475, by Mozart and Fantasy in F sharp minor, Wq. 67, by CPE Bach, she seems to constantly improvise, which is the mark of a great musician. Everything starts from the heart to return to the heart.
And what colors! The introduction of the Fancy of Bach’s son, which begins as a confidence and then bursts into a rich strong alone is worth the price of the disc.
Classical music
Fantasias: CP E. Bach/Mozart
Melisande McNabney
ATMA