Search - Enescu, Ravel, Bismuth :: Violin Sonata / Tzigane

Enescu full of exaggerations and mannerisms, but a unique in

Discophage | France | 04/13/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Patrick Bismuth is better known as a baroque violinist, and has contributed a number of recordings of that repertoire, including Bach and Biber (Heinrich Ignatius Franscicus Biber: Les Sonates du Rosaire - Patrick Bismuth / Ensemble La Tempesta). But he is also interested in folk music, improvisation, Gipsy music. This budget-priced CD is the partial reissue of a 2-CD set published in 2001, which had also pieces by Kreisler, Falla, Granados, Albeniz and the rare Suite on Greek Popular Tunes by Maurice Emmanuel (Miroirs). Other than using gut rather than wire strings, Bismuth's is a very original and quite unique approach to Enescu's magnificent 3rd Sonata, highly fanciful and whimsical. In the first movement there is a little phrase that recurs twice and is noted "con grazia", but Bismuth phrases it more capriciously, and this description applies to his approach to the whole Sonata, going Sherban Lupu one step further (Enescu: Violin Sonata No.3; Bartok: Sonata for Solo Violin; Ysaye: Violin Sonatas Nos. 3 & 6). The portamentos and glissandos swoon, the accents are forceful, the "sul ponticello" snarls, and Bismuth paints the myriad effects Enescu wrote in the Sonata with vivid, even gaudy colors. He also displays precise attention to- and much imagination in his rendition of Enescu's many articulation marks, and when a chord sounds funny (as the strangely oscillating one played on harmonics at 7:45 in the first movement), you don't know whether it is a technical slip or an expressive choice - and suspect it is the latter. If you are not well-disposed, you'll find the approach full of mannerisms and exaggerations - and it is, but these are also the mark of a unique personality, and these readings are without equivalent in their expressive commitment. Only Bismuth and Gaëls' approach to the finale do I find misjudged: they hurl into the movement at a precipitous and frenzied tempo, loosing the strong pulse of the rustic Rumanian dance that Enescu intended (and played). Menuhin in both his recordings approached it in a similar manner, but it was better controlled and he managed to retain more of this rustic pulse (Menuhin Plays Enescu, Szymanowski, Prokofiev, Ravel and West Meets East: The Historic Shankar/Menuhin Sessions). But again Bismuth and Gaëls are here quite unique, if more questionably so. Another drawback is that Gaëls plays on what sounds like a poor piano - first I thought it must be something like an 1845 Erard. I wasn't so far off the mark: it is in fact an 1870 Erard - a decision for which I can see no rationale. Historically-informed performance? But Enescu wrote his Sonata in 1926, and Impressions d'Enfance in 1940. In 1870 he wasn't even born!



Those exaggerations are not as much in evidence in the later "Impressions d'Enfance" (Impressions from Childhood) op. 28, or maybe it is that they are more in situation in these graphic and highly evocative music depictions. Composed in 1940, in a time of war, and first performed by Enescu himself and Dinu Lipatti at the piano, "Impressions" is the nostalgic and comforting reflection of the ageing composer (he was turning 60 then) on his childhood, and especially a conjuration of his memories of the famous Gipsy fiddler Nicolas Chioru. A suite of 10 pieces playing without break, with evocative titles - "The Strolling Fiddler", The Old Beggar", "Brooklet at the Far End of the Garden", "Bird in Cage and Cuckoo Clock on the Wall", Lullaby", "Cricket", "Moon through the Window Panes", "Wind in the Fireplace", "Storm Outside, in the Night", "Rising Sun" - it is a journey through the afternoon, evening and night, ending with the rising morning sun in an exultant D major. The music is descriptive, but it is much more than that: Enesco uses a wide array of incredible Gipsy-inspired violin effects, trills, sul ponticello and ricochet bowing, harmonics, ornate melismatas, while the piano part is thick and showered with grace notes, glissandos and arpeggios, giving it a very "aquatic" texture. It is a masterpiece of equal stature with the 3rd Sonata.



Bismuth's bent for exaggerated gestures and taste for vivid coloring is in situation here. Schmaltzy portamentos are OK for a strolling fiddler. Throughout he conjures highly evocative atmospheres - his bird and cricket chirp despairingly, his wind positively snarls in the chimney, and his ensuing storm is appropriately angry and agitated, while his sunrise has all the required exultation (and more birds chirping from the piano). Gaëls proves an equal partner, and too bad again that the piano sounds like your old, run-down parlor instrument.



While Bismuth's Enescu is disputable but original, his Tzigane is simply exceptional - and not only because it uses not the piano but the rare Luthéal for which the piece was originally conceived. The Luthéal is a device invented by the Belgian Georges Cloetens which, adjusted to a Pleyel piano, allows the performer to use three additional registers: harpsichord, cymbalum and the so-called "harpe tirée", which sounds like Cage's prepared piano. It is very convincing, offering a range of sonorities which adds greatly to the piece's Gipsy flavor. Among the three recorded versions with Luthéal, Bismuth and Gaëls are the best. According to the notes of Philippe Graffin's disc (in the shade of forests), the original score has precise indications about which registers should be used - and apparently Anne Gaëls doesn't follow them: her use of the different registers is more varied and imaginative than her counterparts. As for Bismuth, what is exceptional in his approach is that he has all the swagger and bite and raw energy the piece requires, but all within the most precise observance of Ravel's indications among the circa twenty recordings I have heard. Daniel Hope, the other competing version with Luthéal (East Meets West), is pretty good in that respect, but even he, like so many other illustrious fiddlers, "cheats" in some spots, like playing as a plucked chord what Ravel wrote as a pizzicato triplet. As for Graffin, he sounds undisciplined and constantly exaggerated - somewhat like Bismuth in Enescu, ironically.



So this may not be the version of Enescu's masterpieces I'd recommend if you have only one (go to Kavakos Ravel: Sonate posthume; Tzigane; Enescu: Impressions d'enfance; Sonata No. 3 or Martin Enescu: Impressions for that), but it is certainly one to know if you are into that music. And for Tzigane, it is indispensable.



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