Francois Couperin Ludwig van Beethoven Camille SaintSaens - Three Centuries of Bagatelles (35 tracks) +Album Reviews

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Francois Couperin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Camille Saint-Saens
Three Centuries of Bagatelles
Genre: Classical

Track Listings (35) - Disc #1
1. Les Bagatelles, for harpsichord (Pi?ces de clavecin, II, 10e ordre)
2. Bagatelle for piano in A minor ('F?r Elise'), WoO 59
3. Bagatelle for piano in F major, Op. 33/3
4. Bagatelle for piano in A major, Op. 33/4
5. Bagatelle for piano in A minor, Op. 119/9
6. Bagatelle for piano in C minor, Op. 119/5
7. Bagatelles (6) for piano, Op. 3: Suite 1. Bagatelle No. 1. Poco sostenuto
8. Bagatelles (6) for piano, Op. 3: Suite 1. Bagatelle No. 2. Allegro animato quasi presto
9. Bagatelles (6) for piano, Op. 3: Suite 1. Bagatelle No. 3. Poco adagio
10. Bagatelles (6) for piano, Op. 3: Suite 2. Bagatelle No. 4. Moderato assai
11. Bagatelles (6) for piano, Op. 3: Suite 2. Bagatelle No. 5. Allegro molto
12. Bagatelles (6) for piano, Op. 3: Suite 2. Bagatelle No. 6. Poco sostenuto
13. Bagatelle for piano in D flat major No. 3, Op. 30
14. Bagatelle for piano in G sharp minor, Op. 53/1
15. Bagatelle for piano in G major, Op. 53/2
16. Bagatelle for piano in A flat major, Op. 53/3
17. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 1
18. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 2
19. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 3
20. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 4
21. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 5
22. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 6
23. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 7
24. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 8
25. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 9
26. Bagatelles (11) for piano, Op. 5: Bagatelle No. 10
27. Bagatelles (7) for piano, Op. 19: Bagatelle No. 1
28. Bagatelles (7) for piano, Op. 19: Bagatelle No. 2
29. Bagatelles (7) for piano, Op. 19: Bagatelle No. 3
30. Bagatelles (7) for piano, Op. 19: Bagatelle No. 4
31. Bagatelles (7) for piano, Op. 19: Bagatelle No. 5
32. Bagatelles (7) for piano, Op. 19: Bagatelle No. 6
33. Bagatelles (7) for piano, Op. 19: Bagatelle No. 7
34. Bagatelle sans tonalit?, for piano, S. 216a (LW A338)
35. Valse: Ma mie qui danse (Presto), for piano (14 Bagatelles No. 14), Sz. 38/14, BB 50/14 (Op. 6/14)

CD Details

All Artists: Francois Couperin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Camille Saint-Saens, Anatol Lyadov, Alexander Tcherepnin, Edison Denisov, Franz Liszt, Bela Bartok, Julia Zilberquit
Title: Three Centuries of Bagatelles
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: Naxos
Original Release Date: 1/1/2007
Re-Release Date: 5/29/2007
Genre: Classical
Styles: Chamber Music, Forms & Genres, Short Forms, Historical Periods, Baroque (c.1600-1750), Classical (c.1770-1830), Instruments, Keyboard
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPC: 747313023776

CD Reviews

A Clever Programming Idea

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 06/28/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Julia Zilberquit, a former student of Bella Davidovich, is a Russian pianist living in New York; she is a new name for me. My guess is that she is the daughter of musicologist Mark Zilberquit who wrote an informative book in the 1980s about modern Russian pianists as well as the notes that accompany this CD. From the picture on the CD's booklet she looks to be in her thirties. Her playing here is very smooth and seems a bit cautious to me although that is less apparent in some of the more modern pieces (as in Edison Denisov's First Bagatelle). The idea for this CD is clever in that it collects pieces all named 'Bagatelle' from the putative earliest so-named piece by Couperin all the way forward to several by Denisov.

It was a particular pleasure to come upon the delightful set of bagatelles by Alexander Tcherepnin which I hadn't heard since I played them fifty-plus years ago as a kid pianist . Somehow, though, they weren't as edgy as I'd remembered. The highlight for me was those seven bagatelles by Edison Denisov with their Russian rhythms and echoes of Shostakovich. The several Beethoven bagatelles on this disc are played in a rather faceless way and do not erase memories of recordings by Brendel, Kovacevich and Richter, or even of Naxos's own Jeno Jando.

Saint-Saëns' bagatelles are a discovery for me. I'm not generally a big admirer of his music, although it is always well-constructed, but these little pieces have real charm. Liadov's Four Bagatelles exude an exquisitely perfumed lyricism.

Something entirely different is Liszt's 1885 'Bagatelles sans tonalité', a late work in which Liszt pushes the harmonic language beyond the hyperchromaticism of Wagner; for all that, it is a delicate waltz. The CD ends with Bartók's Bagatelle Op. 6, No. 14 'Valse (Ma mie quie danse ...)' ('My Dancing Darling'), a bumptious musical joke and a fine sendoff for this uneven but intriguing disc.

Scott Morrison"