Customer Reviews

Fauré: The Complete Music for Piano

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Faure's musical style is rooted in Romanticm, his architecture grounded in Classical stucture and his harmonies forward-looking into Modernism. There is an unpredictability and uneasiness often in his melodies with a corresponding adventurousness in his harmonic shifts. Paying tribute to Chopin, many of these pieces are under Chopin's classification of Nocturne, Impromptu, Barcarrole, Waltz (Valse) and Prelude. Some sound like Chopin, but not many as Faure clearly had his own style and ideas. The most ellusive are the nine Preludes while the most sophisticated and satisfying may be the 13 Noctures. The 13 Barcarolles are not as large in scope but alluring.

Faure's piano music is autobiographical in that the earlier pieces reflect Faure's more youthful optimism which later yielded to a greater austerity, ambiguity, unpredictability and melancholy in the aged, suffering, deaf composer. How his music like these psychologically complex piano works had previously not been recognnized for its superb creativity and uniqueness elludes me. I guess it may be because (thank goodness) Faure never felt compelled to compose music that had the predictable crowd-pleasing formulas for the concert audience - like ending with three bangs and Wagneresque grandure. We should celebrate such courageous individuality.

Pianist Kathryn Stott seems to have the type of personna and style that is well-suited for the gentile, urbane and somewhat understated music of Faure. Ms. Stott has focused her career primarily on the chamber and solo repertoire, and within that, mostly on 19th-century French music. She is one of today's most prominent proponents of French music - so much so that the French government awarded her special recognition as such. This set is welcome addition. One cannot cite her for restraint in her often emotionally charged approach here.

The Penguin Guide awarded this four-CD set a PENGUIN ROSETTE citing while Gramophone gave it a "Critic's Choice" award - both of which certainly says something positive if you are thinking of purchasing it. Also each of the four CD's contains a generous 70+ minutes with the typically clear Hyperion sound along with superb notes from the ever-insightful Bryce Morrison. Here are some other mainstream press reviews on this CD (also see Stott's other single-disc highlight CD for more Amazon reviews).

'One of the most purely pleasurable releases of the year so far. The playing is intelligent, persuasive, Ioving, and the music reaches far beyond the standard boundaries of the French salon style. Four outstanding discs' (The Independent)

'Sumptuously recorded. A true and dedicated Francophile [Kathryn Stott] is clearly among the more stylish and intriguing of all young pianists' (Gramophone)

'She deserves an honoured place beside the most distinguished Faure exponents ... A major achievement in every way' (Classic CD)

'A tremendous achievement' (BBC Music Magazine)

'A major contribution to the recorded literature of French piano music, strongly recommended' (Fanfare, USA)

Personally, I pull this set out on a rainy day and drink in its tonal complexities and imponderable. If you are new to Faure's music, the single-disc by Stott on Hyperion "cherry picks" the most popular pieces and should satisfy all but those committed to fully survey the whole Faure's career. Compositions - 4.5 stars; Performance - 4.5 stars; Sound Quality - 4.0 stars.

In the Nov. 2009 Gramophone review by Bryce Morrison of recordings of Faure's Nocturnes, Stott's set made the better list while top billing went to the 1956 remastered recording on Testement label of Germaine Thyssens-Valentine. Get both and let them simmer over a long time to gain their insights.

This is an excellent set. I am quite familiar with Faure's piano music and have played a few of these pieces myself. Other than a few reservations about her performance of the Theme and Variations, I think Stott shows a deep sensitivity for Faure's style - especially the late works. I highly recommend this set.

Faure's piano music is complex and technically demanding in many ways. Much of it is written in three streams, a melody and an accompaniment as well as third-stream weaving in between the roles. Constructed this way, the prevalent homophony (melody & accompaniment) of 19th-century piano music is transformed into something close to polyphony, lying in a halfway spot between those two general textural categories. The terrific British pianist Kathryn Stott has specialized in French music and delivers a wonderful complete version of Faure's piano works here, running to four discs. Stott, a wonderful technician, has the ability to separate the three strands I describe above by playing each one of them with a different color. Take for example, the beautiful sixth Barcarolle (disc 2, track 6), where the main melody and the decoration above it are done with different shadings, to separate the streams of music.

The complexity of the textures in Faure's writing both require using the pedal (the right pedal on the piano extends the notes sound after the key has been released) and at the same time complicates using it as the music is moving on to new harmonies and different textures. I came to appreciate one subtle part of Stott's achievement as the careful and just splendid way she uses the pedal, applying it and releasing it in such a way that it adds the echo-y texture Faure's music needs but releasing it to avoid muddiness and harmonic blurs. Stott is simply a great pianist.

I personally have found the music pretty difficult to understand. It is suave, understated, complex in harmonic and polyphonic terms. Faure avoids grand, forceful gestures and has a personal preference for subtle evocations and long, undramatic melodies. Faure changed a great deal through his life, and evolved from a florid, very attractive early romanticism through a sophisticated and, at the end of his life, came to write in an austere style that can be off-putting and difficult to understand. But there are lovely moments throughout. Take a piece of magic like the 4th Nocturne (disc 3, track 4) or a riveting, somber late piece, the 10th Barcarolle (disc 2, track 10), or the scintillating early Impromptu #2 (disc 1, track 2). I'm not going to claim that every piece recorded here is successful, but I have discovered many new ones here that are jewels.

Some readers here will be wondering about single Faure discs that Stott has released. The 4-disc anthology under review here is really for the French music enthusiast. Stott's single disc releases on the Conifer label are entirely different recordings from earlier in Stott's career, but they share a similar interpretation as the Hyperion set being reviewed here, as you'd expect, and are likewise excellent, so they probably form a better introduction than this massive effort.

The set covers all of Faure's piano music, the most important being the beautiful Barcarolles and Nocturnes, which were composed over the span of his entire, long career. The set contains something like a third of Faure's published works. Also added are some beautiful Impromptus, the two-piano Dolly Suite, where Stott is joined by Martin Roscoe, as well as lesser-known pieces like the austere late set of Preludes, four Valses-Caprices, and other pieces. Stott also includes the solo piano version of the Ballade, Op. 19, one of Faure's most famous works, and this performance is simply amazing - musical, touching and easily overcoming the Ballade's well-known technical difficulties.

The recording was done over just a few days in 1992 with sound done by maybe the most famous classical music engineer, Tony Faulkner, so the sound is excellent. A great set.

Gabriel Faure is one of my favorite composers and I enjoy his piano music - years ago, I started w/ a single Stott disc of these piano pieces, upgraded to 2 discs, and then finally obtained the 4-disc box reviewed here. These recordings have gleamed admiration and respect over the years and from many expert & respected sources; I don't need to repeat the many already quoted by the 5* poster. These are fine performances and have been recommended by virtually all who have commented; so I'll add yet another to raise the overall rating of this set to the quality deserved.

The previous reviewer was right about Faure's piano music being of "introspective moods, rich chromatic textures, subtle expressivity and sheer tonal beauty", however, I heard very little of that in Stott's playing.

If lifelessness is what equates introspection for the critics that praised these recordings, then Stott's Faure deserves every award it's gotten. The fact is, her playing seriously lacks the "chromatic textures, subtle expressivity and sheer tonal beauty" that is so important for Faure, and the only reason these recordings are so highly praised is because of patriotic bias. Even the Naxos bargain offerings by Volondat is much better.