Rachmaninoff's True Successor !
Josef Majaess | Halifax, NS CANADA | 03/11/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The Concerto de Quebec was composed by Andre Matieu and after hearing it live at Carnegie Hall, maestro Sergei Rachmaninoff went as far as declaring Mathieu his true successor. It is a very exciting work in which the style could certainly be considered similar to the composer's admirer: filled with romance and passion!
Unfortunately, like Tausig, Lipatti, and the many before him, Mathieu left us much too soon."
Alain Lefevre, Yoav Talmi, OSQ: Matthieu, Addinsell, Gershwi
Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 07/26/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"At first glance this disc looks like a less than successful idea. The reputations of the three works on it might be guessed to vary too much - from the much beloved and highly praised Gershwin Concerto in F, to the pop-music Warsaw Concerto by Addinsell, to the almost completely unknown Andre Matthieu's Quebec Concerto.
Let's start with the least known work. Indeed it starts off the disc. Matthieu has a reputation as the Quebec Mozart, insofar as he was early recognized as a musical prodigy, including one of his compositions winning a young composer's competition which he then performed in New York, at about age thirteen years. His music beat out the young Leonard Bernstein, among other things. He also did concerts that included appearing in New York's Town Hall by age ten. Other wags have summarized Matthieu as a sort of Canadian Rachmaninoff, mostly because upon hearing his music, the real Rachmaninoff pronounced Matthieu to be a genius with greater gifts. Like Mozart, Matthieu led a life of ups and downs, dying young at the age of 39 years.
Unlike either Mozart or Rachmaninoff, however, Matthieu lost the music public's attention in the 1950's, and despite living another nineteen years, never really got the spotlight back. Pianist Alain Lefevre has made advocacy for this composer a central feature of his study and performing. He probably knows as much about Matthieu, and certainly about the music, than any other trained musician or musicologist.
What is being called Concerto de Quebec on this disc is a carefully edited compilation from at least six different working versions of the piece, studied and compared and collated into a performable whole by Lefevre. The work basically dates from Matthieu's adolescence, when he was just short of being fourteen years old. Lefevre believes that the orchestrations were done by Matthieu's father.
Stylistically, this concerto is something of an attractive yet odd, duck. Passages that recall Rachmaninoff lie right next to other passage, recalling other 20th century influences. My ears seem to pick up touches of Francis Poulenc, Prokofiev or even Khachaturian, and tin pan alley turning classical Gershwin. The concerto is in three movements, eight, twelve, and six minutes each, respectively. The piano and orchestra mix it up sufficiently that nobody can complain that the concerto is all that under nourished, whatever its youthful technical weaknesses. The overall orchestration is really based in brilliant French traditions, so comes across as a telling mix of Saint-Saens, Poulenc, Ravel, further lit up with generous dollops of pop music and jazz.
Not all that bad an job, come to think of it, for most fourteen year old composers? If you have a quirky musical streak inside; if you respond favorably to the pastiche of musical connotations that one can hear in Poulenc, Ravel and so forth, then Matthieu may ring your bells. Hearing this Quebec Concerto is at least fun, even if the lasting message of the music does not go all that deep into either territories we have learned to associate with Rachmaninoff or with Prokofiev-Ravel-Stravinsky.
Under Yoav Talmi's leadership the Orchestra Symphonique de Quebec plays very well. I think I've already been quite taken with their playing in a tremendously successful super audio surround sound disc of Debussy orchestrations, also led by Yoav Talmi. They also provide very solid, effective musical backing for Measha Brueggergosman's Berlioz-Massenet recital, titled Extase. So, no doubts about OSQ, then. Alain Lefevre makes fine work of the often difficult keyboard writing. He fluently throws off chords, runs, cascades of figurations - busy as Rachmaninoff, yet still different in tone, color, and musical effect.
The second work is a nine minute reading of the Richard Addinsell Warsaw Concerto. This brief work was derived from film music that Addinsell wrote for Hollywood in the 1930's. It was once a wildly popular piece, and has had over a hundred appearances on discs, selling about three million copies. These days one is hard pressed to find it in the available catalog, so far has Addinsell fallen out of commercial favor. The work is hardly the deepest, greatest music ever written for piano with orchestra. That said, though, Talmi, OSQ, and Lefevre do make a more serious quality-oriented reading out of it than is commonly the case. The pacing is so expert that at times it stretches beyond its film music heritage, and all in all, gathers all its musical resources to make as fine a sound as it probably can.
I certainly would not hesitate to guess that Lefevre gives us the best reading that this rhapsodic work has probably ever received on disc.
Then we wrap up with the familiar, beloved Gershwin Concerto in F Major. Talmi knows how best to energize his OSQ departments while keeping their balance and leaving space open for plenty of sparkle and flowing song. Again, the music never sounds less significant than it actually has turned out to be, over the decades since its premiere. My own Gershwin concerto favs have included Earl Wild, Garrick Ohlsson, Jeffrey Siegal, Peter Donohoe, Pascal Roge (super audio), Wayne Marshall, and outstandingly, Helene Grimaud under Zinman in Baltimore.
The first movement gets off to a bright start with plenty of action. The band and Lefevre emphasize the contrasting Gershwin themes and attitudes while keeping the whole thing hanging together in a whole piece. Then the slow movement unfolds in exquisite tune, all the better for not having its blues and jazz aspects too heavily overplayed. Lefevre is mesmerizing in his individualized yet wise playing of the cadenza-like episode near the end of the slow movement. Talmi actually makes Gershwin's orchestrations sound very American while also full of color, mood, and sheer deep genius. Nothing sounds too thin, ever. For once the final fast movement does not sound out, touched with awkward squaresville and passing moments of labored filler, especially compared to the slow movement just played. The motoric elements are given their due while also bringing out colors and shapes which enliven passages that are just filler or transition, in other musical hands. As in the first movement, a lot of fun also comes through, all blues, all jazz hands on deck.
On another disc, Lefevre offers us rhapsodies, including the Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue. I find myself thinking that I can burn my own mix copy of that plus this alluring concerto in F Major. I know that part of Lefevre's passionate aim is to expose listeners to the long-neglected Matthieu. But Lefevre's way with Gershwin deserves a showcase all its own, perhaps.
So there you have it, so far as my ears are concerned. I think Lefevre is among the best of Gershwin players, and he doesn't fall short even when he is pushing unfamiliar or neglected works like the Matthieu or the Addinsell. On that other disc, by the way, Lefevre does a hell of a job with Rachmaninoff's Paganini Rhapsody. He finds individual phrasing and tempos in some of the variations, yet never ends up sounding indulgent or too self-absorbed that we lose contact with the composer. On that disc, Matthias Bamert is leading the OSQ. It's a live recording, so expect audience applause.
Five stars. Not least for the Addinsell, and above all, for the Gershwin concerto."
Track Listings (7) - Disc #1