I had been greatly
impressed by Charles Owen’s sensitive
playing of the piano music of Janáček
(SOMM CD 028 - not reviewed)
and so I looked forward with great anticipation
to hearing this Poulenc compilation.
I was not disappointed.
Under the sensitive
fingers of Charles Owen this music becomes
magic. Owen empathises completely with
Poulenc’s idiom, particularly that mood
of delicate dreamy nostalgia that touches
the heart, brings a lump to the throat
as though we are taken back to the long-forgotten,
‘The Land of Lost Content’, the golden,
safe secure days of childhood innocence.
I am thinking particularly of Charles
Owen’s beautiful, limpid readings of
the lovely neo-classical miniatures
that are Trois Novelettes Nos.
1 and 3 (with the amusing No.
2 sandwiched between). In similar mood
there is the seventh C major improvisation
of the set of Fifteen improvisations;
plus the haunting ‘Hommage à
Edith Piaf’ that concludes those improvisations.
Another highlight is the sad beauty
of Mélancholie dedicated
to Raymond Destouches (a descendant
of the baroque French operatic composer)
another moving composition, delicate
yet passionate too and deeply felt by
Owen.
Balancing the dreamy,
and sometimes abruptly interrupting,
are episodes of perky insouciance ...
think of the fairground/theatre organ
music juxtaposed with solemn cathedral-atmosphere
material in Poulenc’s Organ Concerto.
Such abrupt changes of mood are frequently
used to round out the witty, telling
little character studies that comprise
the variations of Les Soirées
de Nazelles, musical portraits inspired,
according to Poulenc, by his neighbours
at Noisay. The music varies from the
coy and delicate to the stern and pompous,
from the fussy to the flippant from
the dreamy romance to heart-rending
sadness.
The Suite Napoli
is sunny enough but the music of the
first movement ‘Barcarolle’, seems to
have strayed very little from the Boulevards
of Paris. The ‘Nocturne’, middle movement
is restless: rippling arpeggio ostinati
and dreamy figures interrupted by harsher
material. The final ‘Caprice Italien’
is Poulenc at his most capricious, busy,
merry, cheeky then melancholy and, of
course, nostalgic.
Fifteen Improvisations
were originally published in four separate
groups. Not intended to be heard as
a single entity they do, nevertheless,
together form a very satisfactory listening
experience. All the familiar Poulenc
fingerprints are here. Of the fifteen,
three have subtitles: ‘Ėloge des
gammes’ (in praise of scales) is affectionately
Chopinesque in its refinement, then
there is the clever, lyrical but slightly
sardonic ‘Hommage ą Schubert’
and, finally, the longest of the set,
the Edith Piaf homage referred to earlier.
A magical album. Charles
Owen empathises closely with Poulenc’s
elusive idiom catching its delicacy
and insouciance brilliantly. An album
to cherish and one that will undoubtedly
figure highly in my recital discs of
2005.
Ian Lace
for details
Charles Owen (piano) 
