As soon as I saw Bizet: Complete Piano Music listed as
a new release on the Naxos website, I realized that I had never
before even thought of Georges Bizet in relation to piano compositions
or piano music. I listened to the album for the first time with
trepidation. Was there a reason his piano works had evaded popularity
for so long? Was there a reason that quick checks of the internet
revealed only two recorded piano recitals of Bizet prior to
this one, neither offering the “complete” works?
Not all of this music is especially memorable, and none of it
is profound. But one can safely slot Bizet into the tradition
of Moszkowski, Paderewski, Mendelssohn, Gottschalk and others
as a composer of admirable, charming little salon miniatures
which, one imagines, gave amateurs of the day considerable pleasure
and provided the composers with respectable calling-cards at
evening parties. Even in this field, I would not credit Bizet
with the originality some of those other composers exhibited
in their works for piano.
Julia Severus has carefully and cleverly programmed her two
discs here. Each begins with lighter fare, progresses through
a smart alternation of serious and slight, and ends with one
of the L’Arlésienne suites, arranged for
piano by the composer. The two nocturnes on CD 1 are reminiscent
more of Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words than
anything by Chopin, and I prefer the lovely cantabile F major
to the less-inspired example in D. There are several waltzes
bathed in the perfume of the salons of Paris. The C major waltz
really is a clever delight with some surprises in store, although
the “Grand valse de concert” does not have a main
tune nearly as hummable as Moszkowski’s work by the same
title. The three Esquisses include a “Ronde turque”
which impressed me as sounding quite a lot more authentically
Turkish than almost any other western piece bearing that title.
The most dramatic work on CD 1 is Variations chromatiques,
the chromatic passages of which serve up high drama and empty
virtuosity in equal measure before the piece turns into a rather
pedestrian, wandering “happy romantic” piece near
the middle. An ominous ending, consciously imitative of Beethoven,
barely manages to save it. The four Preludes are refreshing
and nicely varied in mood, although they add up to just three
minutes’ worth of music. The two Caprices are rather longer
and I actually found the first quite interesting in its spicy
blend of minor mode, sly attitude and stealthy rhythms. Again,
think of Moszkowski, or perhaps even of a Chopin mazurka. Both
Caprices sound as if they are just waiting to be orchestrated;
by contrast, the first L’Arlésienne suite
has been de-orchestrated here, and the beginning of the introduction
does sound rather naked. In fact, it sounds like a fugue subject
waiting to be put into counterpoint. The rest of the suite goes
better; indeed, the minuet and carillons are quite successful
as piano pieces.
The second CD opens with the longest work in the set: Chants
du Rhin, a series of tone-pictures with titles like “Les
rêves” which lasts for a little over twenty minutes.
Even this work manages to be cutesy; “La bohémienne”
is like a Chopin waltz composed by an inebriate. I think Julia
Severus takes the opening movement a bit too quickly, but the
others are better - “Les confidences” in particular
is a well-voiced song begging for words. The most striking moment
of the Magasin des familles comes near the end of the
“Méditation réligieuse,” when Bizet
caps off the piece with some unexpected, indeed totally out
of place, fortissimo chords. Better is the second L’Arlésienne
suite, which succeeds as a piano piece all the way through,
especially the dance episode in the middle of the Pastorale
and the dazzling passagework in the center of the final Farandole.
A few miniatures fill out the remainder of the set, all of them
from essentially the same “songs without words”
mold. The only Venetian characteristic I can detect in “Venise”
is its melancholy mood, something like (one might say, creatively)
a city reflecting that its best centuries are behind it. A “Romance
sans paroles” is rather sans interest. The surprisingly
Latin American “Marine” hints that Julia Severus
would probably be a great performer of samba, ragtime and composers
like Gershwin and Ernesto Nazareth.
I was surprised to realize that Bizet had even written piano
music, so this set counts as a pleasant discovery. That some
of the works, particularly the waltz in C, nocturne in F, “Marine”,
and a few excerpts from L’Arlésienne, are
actually very good makes this an even better surprise. Julia
Severus is reliable and sensitive to the music’s lyricism
and supplies her own well-written liner-notes, and the recorded
sound is warm and close. This piano music is generally not too
special - in fact none of it is “special” except
maybe the sudden Brazilian turn of “Marine” - but
all of it is, at a minimum, rather pretty, and “rather
pretty” is a good thing to be. If you are fond of rather
pretty piano music, here are two discs full of it waiting to
be heard.
As a part of the Naxos Digital imprint, this album is currently
only available for download at the website Classicsonline, where
it sells for rather less than the price of a physical compact
disc. Other download retailers, like eMusic and iTunes, stock
it as well. Naxos informs me that a standard CD will be issued
in January 2011.
Brian Reinhart
Julia Severus (piano) 
[71:03 + 61:17] 
