"There are frightfully few recordings of Rameau on the piano. This is one of them, and it is delightful. Mordecai Shehori also has an excellent recording of Rameau music on the piano. If you have enjoyed listening to Bach on the piano, I think you'll enjoy this flavor of Baroque music. The music can be haunting and introspective and interestingly, colors emerge that one might not have thought if you are familiar with the harpsichord incarnation of the music. If you are a pianist, it will probably give you some ideas for new repertoire.
The recording quality is good -- and I find myself easily relistening to this recording."
Overall really good, but lacking in some areas
sinistermidget | 02/23/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Tharaud's Rameau is for the most part excellent, but I felt that something was lacking. His playing in some places seemed restrained and timid to my ears. This is music that is full of rhythmic vigor, and it doesn't always come through in Tharaud's playing. His ornaments are beautiful and accurate...something that is not altogether easy to transfer from the harpsichord to the piano. I quite enjoyed his 'Gavotte and Six Doubles' (a piece I play, by the way). He does some things I've not heard in other interpretations, which were fairly interesting. If you like Rameau's keyboard music and already have the recordings of Meyer, Sokolov, Casadesus, Cziffra, etc., then this would probably be a welcome addition to your collection. If you are new to his keyboard music, you may want to listen to some of the names mentioned previously before getting this."
Ravishing
I. Martinez-Ybor | Miami, FL USA | 12/10/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Rameau is invariably enjoyable, whether on original instruments, modern forces, indeed synthesizer (let's not forget Bob James' fun, respectful and serious work), or, as in this case, M. Tharaud's piano. Like many, I came to Rameau's music as a musically formed adult, one could say "late." However, once I did, it opened windows to so many beauties, instrumental and vocal, that I regret not having its company earlier. Of course, all this happened quite a while back, though one remains thankful to the likes of William Christie, Christophe Rousset, J.E. Gardiner, etc. who have shown us so many facets of Rameau.
The same feeling of a new musical awareness being awakened in me can be ascribed to my response to this miraculous recording of two of Rameau's harpsichord suites by Alexandre Tharaud on a glorious Steinway. Listen to the opening Allemand of the Suite in A, the first track on the CD. The musical lines always stand out, on secure, inner rhythmic momentum, with embelishments truly beautifying the line, and the counterpoint colored throughout by the magic of Mr. Tharaud's touch and pedaling. This is perhaps the most sensual piano recording I own. That it sounds shaped by great intellectual rigor and intense discipline adds to the pleasure. This is a CD to which I return as if to a bottle of exquisite, rich Burgundy, afraid it will run out..... fortunately, it just keeps giving.
M. Tharaud has also successfully recorded Ravel's complete solo piano music, Milhaud, Poulenc, Schubert and now Bach. He ends the Rameau CD with Debussy's "Hommage à Rameau" which makes one wish for a recording of the Preludes not too far in the future."
A worthy successor to Marcelle Meyer's historical recording
Discophage | France | 07/09/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"As I remarked in my review of Alexandre Tharaud's recent Couperin recording (Alexandre Tharaud plays Couperin ~ tic, toc, choc), while Bach and Scarlatti have always been accepted territory for pianists (although up until the mid 1980s they sometimes felt the need to apologetically justify themselves for playing Bach - and playing it after Glenn Gould!), this hasn't been the case with Haendel, Rameau and Couperin, and I wonder why. Of course there were a few exceptions - there was a tradition in France for playing and recording those early French baroque composers, which goes back to Marcelle Meyer's seminal and glorious recordings of Couperin (1946) and especially Rameau (1953-5) (Les Introuvables De Marcelle Meyer vol. 2: Rameau, Couperin, Scarlatti, Rossini), and further back to Franck, Chabrier, Debussy and Ravel's rediscovery of and infatuation with this repertoire. Robert Casadesus (in 1952, Robert Casadesus: Rameau, Scarlatti, Mozart, Haydn) and his son Jean (in 1954, Jean & Robert Casadesus - Ravel, Bach, Rameau, Couperin, Poulenc, Françaix, Tailleferre, R. Casadesus, D. Scarlatti), but also Emil Gilels (in concert in Moscow in 1960, on a Chant du Monde 2-CD set, nla), Gyorgy Cziffra (Les Rendez-vous de Senlis: Cziffra's recordings 1980-1986), Pierre Barbizet (not listed on this site. Asin B00008LOD1 on the French sister company) recorded only snippets. At the end of the 1970s and early 1980s the small French label FY published the complete keyboard output by Thérèse Dussaut (only samples of it have been reissued on a single CD in the early 1990s, nla). These artists, and most notably Meyer, demonstrated how beautiful this music sounds on the piano, and how revelatory the instrument is. But all these remained that: exceptions, and for reasons that I don't really understand even Meyer's magnificent recordings failed to set a trend.
But maybe, now that every pianist seems keen on playing and recording Bach, their time with Rameau (and Couperin, and Haendel) has also come. Hopefully Tharaud is a beacon. His recording is a marvel and a model. He chose two contrasting suites, both from the Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de clavecin from 1728. Suite in A is mostly a collection of "abstract" numbers in the manner of the German suite - Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, while Suite in G is gathers those descriptive and evocative pieces so typical of Rameau and Couperin's genius, and contains one of Rameau's most famous compositions in the genre : "La Poule" (the Hen), cackles and all.
In the very interesting interview contained in the liner notes, Tharaud explains that he first set out to get as close as he could to Baroque style, drawing upon the advice of harpsichordists such as Olivier Beaumont. Then he tried to forget all about it in order to come back to his own instrument, as "you can't play Rameau on a piano the same way you play him on the harpsichord". In particular, he very convincingly contends that the ornamentation ("agrements" with the French word then used) cannot have the same function on harpsichord and piano. On the former, it is "to prolong the note, to characterize it, to emphasize the rhythms, sustain the harmony, to give the discourse a particular color" - all features that are conveyed by the richer timbre, harmonics and decay time of the piano. Not to conclude that he suppressed the ornamentation, on the contrary: his playing is strongly and marvelously evocative of the baroque style for the wealth of embellishments he applies. But he has lavished special care in extra-lightening their weight and texture. They add their own invading, delicate garland to the texture of the music.
Overall, despite his beautiful and tasteful work on ornamentation, I don't think Tharaud effaces the memory of Meyer - on the contrary, hearing her again against a reading nurtured on years of modern scholarship and practice only enhances one's admiration for how genuine and congenial her Rameau style was, ornamentation included. But Tharaud's sonics are of course vastly superior, as I said his ornamentation is a joy to hear, and in some individual numbers he does have an edge: in "Les Trois Mains" from Suite in A for instance, Tharaud proves more dynamic than Meyer, and more naturally flowing in Fanfarinette and Gavotte, slightly more sprightly in Les Tricotets from Suite in G, and as tender as Meyer in the first Menuet (at a slightly more flowing tempo) and Les Triolets.
It was a nice idea to add, as an encore, Debussy's Hommage à Rameau, although, by Tharaud's own adminission, it smacks less of Rameau than of Debussy. Suite Bergamasque might have been more idiomatic. But anyway, though the TT of 63' isn't a bad deal, my only regret is that there isn't more Rameau on this CD. I'd love for Mr Tharaud to go back to his scores and give us the complete output.
Fact is, there has been of late a small trickle of CDs of Rameau played at the piano: in 1997 José Eduardo Martins originally on the Belgian label Gents Muzikaal Archief, on this site on Northern Flowers (Rameau - L'euvre de Clavier - Jose Eduardo Martins (2 CD Set)), in 1998 Mordecai Sheori on Cembal d'Amor (Rameau: Pièces de Clavecin), and recently Tzimon Barto on Ondine (2005, A Basket of Wild Strawberries: A Selection of Keyboard Works by Jean-Philippe Rameau), Stephen Gutman on Toccata Classics (2006, Rameau: The Complete Keyboard Music, Vol. 1), and Angela Hewitt on Hyperion (2007 Rameau: Keyboard Suites). So maybe a trend has been set after all. Cross your fingers and touch wood, but for the time being, enjoy what's offered here.
"
Who would have known?
Fernand Raynaud | California, USA | 11/11/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I had always heard Rameau on harpsichord. It has been said that Rameau's books of suites come historically exactly at the point where pure counterpoint was being replaced by accompanied melody. The early suites are fascinating as examples of what the weave alone can do, and the later ones are melodic but almost stark in comparison. The harpsichord is a powerful instrument, but it obviously cannot do full justice to extracting an interplay of lines due to its lack of dynamics. After listening to the full Suites on Harpsichord, say Scott Ross' marvelous 3 CD set, a sort of timbral fatigue slowly sets in, then it washes out the melodies until I have to put the whole affair aside. The piano (and what a piano!) now suddenly reveals rich melodies in the earlier pieces and drama in the later ones, which come off at times downright Chopinesque! Who would have known?
There is something so disarmingly folksy and homey in these suites (that it makes Bach sound formal in comparison), and this personal quality comes off favorably on the piano too. So beautiful and lyrical! Tharaud makes no excuses for his romanticism. This is an accented Rameau, with rubato, with dynamics, with some pedal. But also with a full mastery of the rich ornamentation that is intrinsic to the compositions. On the harpsichord the ornamentation is a way around the lack of dynamics of the instrument. Added to the wider tonal range of the piano it is stunning. The Steinway is mic'ed in such a way to give it a bit of a FortePiano sound. This is significant. Perhaps those who find this recording not quite a 5 star would like it to be more idiomatically piano, but that would be excessive. What we have here is paradoxically faithful to the original, as if at times the harpsichord came through, at other moments the piano. Perhaps that's what one reviewer meant in saying Tharaud had not found his way.
I will add one detail at the risk of alienating some listeners. I don't care for perfection in technique. I find the whole modern pianistic tradition stifled with a demand for zero-error performance. When I first heard Dolmetsch playing Bach on a clavichord (recorded in 1933) I heard a human fallibility unafraid, and I suddenly realized what was bothering me about today's excessively labored perfection: you can't help losing something if your focus is on never slipping. Tharaud is marvelous in that he allows himself a little slack, no wrong notes, mind you, just a little slop in timing here and there, and I LOVE him for it, just as I love Rameau for his "play this at home" spirit. Rameau is unique among the great composers in being so unpretentious, and indeed more people should play him at home.
In any case, for me Tharaud opens up a whole new Rameau, one that a wider audience will better appreciate, and any nitpicking seems just that - this is a 5 star, a warm and personal and marvelous album. The closing Debussy piece seems trivial in comparison, maybe it could be played better, or maybe Rameau just doesn't need that kind of "hommage". Yes, this album is like a gem that keeps giving. Highly recommended as headphone listening and as driving music, and by the fireplace too, a great gift for someone you love."
