MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

 

Availability
CD: Forgotten Records

Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Violin Sonata (1916-17) [12:22] ¹
Maurice RAVEL (1875-1937)
Violin Sonata (1923-27) [15:54] ¹
Ma Mère l’Oye [14:44] ²
Sonatine [11:36] ³
Michèle Auclair (violin): Jacqueline Bonneau (piano) ¹
Jacqueline Bonneau and Geneviève Joy (piano) ²
Marie-Therese Fourneau (piano) ³
rec. 1955-57
FORGOTTEN RECORDS FR552 [54:38]

Experience Classicsonline



Performances by French and Belgian musicians on early LPs have rather fallen between the reissuing cracks. That’s one reason why Forgotten Records has begun to earn a merited place in collectors’ hearts. They restore such things to the market with discrimination, and despite the fact that almost all their discs have simple, note-less card inlays, there are links to relevant websites to enable purchasers to find biographical details of the artists concerned. There are even one or two links to this site.

This disc creates a programme around the figure of ‘cult violinist’ Michèle Auclair (1924–2005). The question of so-called cult violinists is a vexed one. I suppose that Ivry Gitlis is the ultimate one, though Devy Erlih ranks high because his LPs are quite obscure; sure enough Forgotten Recordings have featured him strongly, and rightly so. Auclair is perhaps less well-known, though she taught for many years in her native France and in America. She was a student of Boucherit and Thibaud – the ultimate in French lineages – and made a number of recordings, many on more obscure labels. Her erstwhile teacher Thibaud conducted for her Haydn Concerto No.1 recording in Paris, and she recorded the Bruch G minor with Loibner, who had taped violin concertos with the ageing Albert Spalding for Remington. She did set down a plethora of standard concertos – Brahms with van Otterloo, Mendelssohn in Innsbruck, Mozart in Stuttgart, and the Tchaikovsky (very well) on two separate occasions. Possibly the last named concerto, with Wagner, was one of her best known discs, though her Schubert Sonatinas album with Geneviève Joy and her Bach sonatas set with Marie-Claire Alain were as well known and admired, especially the Bach.

Here we find her in Debussy and Ravel’s sonatas. The balance doesn’t really favour her; it does favour her fine colleague Jacqueline Bonneau rather too often. French studios were quite cold, and this accentuated Auclair’s rather razory and very incisive tonal palette. She was a truly committed player, and her soloistic instincts set her apart from older players still active such as Jeanne Gautier, who was altogether more clement. Some of her playing in the Debussy is brilliantly febrile and engaging; her shifts in the finale are highly expressive, and though her tonal resources are hardly flattered by the recording, one can tell how volatile a player she was. There’s real shape and meaning behind her playing, and one is swept along by it. Her Ravel is also very personal, and the sonata’s parodic elements are well attended to, as well as its more introspective intensity. The finale fizzes – excellent dynamics included – and there’s great personality and panache involved. There are overload hints, especially in the passagework, but I was happy to persevere because of the excitement she and Bonneau generated.

This alone would make for short measure, so FR has added other goodies. Bonneau teams up with Geneviève Joy, who was to become Auclair’s regular sonata partner in 1962, having earlier been associated with Gautier and Le Trio de France, for a delicious performance of Ma Mère l’Oye (March 1955). Again, it’s not exactly a recording draped in the finest cloth – more like breeze block, so chilly is the acoustic. But at least there’s no fudging and the two do generate warmth through their playing. A third distinguished pianist also appears in the shape of Marie-Therese Fourneau, who plays the Sonatine with great plasticity and wit.

For admirers of French chamber playing in the 1950s, this is a winning disc.

Jonathan Woolf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.