Risler’s is not a household name now but it once
was. Born in Baden-Baden in 1873 he was taught by Louis Diémer,
one of the most controversial of the high priests of French pianism,
and won the Premier Prix in 1889. Subsequently moving in the d’Albert-Von
Bülow orbit he gave programmes both monumental (the Bach
48 and a complete Chopin series) and contemporary – he was dedicatee
of Dukas’s Piano Sonata for example. Risler taught at the Paris
Conservatoire, his best pupils probably being Marcel Gaveau and
Jacques Février, and he was for many years an outstanding
exponent of cosmopolitan French music making.
The recordings here are not dated by Symposium,
so far as I can see, but I’ve provisionally dated these Paris
Pathés to 1917 – and would welcome corroboration or correction
from readers. Sonically they are somewhat compromised but the
ear soon adjusts as it invariably does with recordings of this
vintage and the significance of these performances outweighs any
reservations concerning surface noise; the transfers, in any case,
are very sympathetic. The programme is an eclectic one, fully
reflective of his penchant for the glittering cascades as well
as the monumental buttresses of the canon, and fascinatingly revealing
of performance style. His Rameau is fluid and delicate and the
Couperin, in an edition by his erstwhile teacher Diémer,
is marvellously driven and textually aerated. He was renowned
as a Beethovenian and here shows his credentials in some isolated
sonata movements; he has an impressive staccato in the scherzo
from Op.31/3 and real fluency in the finale of Op.26. The real
surprise is his reworking – one assumes it’s his – of the slow
movement of the Concerto in G, where he plays both roles, as it
were. His playing is relatively cool and unmannered with remarkable
pianissimi. His Mendelssohn is witty and fleet with a splendidly
observed rallentando and the Chopin Nocturne is notable for the
flowing tempo, the sensitively applied sotto voce playing, the
clarity of his passagework and strong sense of direction in the
music making.
In the case of the Mazurka he is thoughtful and
withdrawn and the tone never quite sings enough but in the Weber
one can really admire, despite the limited frequency of the recording,
the range of his dynamics in the opening section and the well
coloured playing generally. He is saucy rather than ebullient
in Liszt, preferring acuity of rhythmic displacement to virtuosic
bombast but really shines in Chabrier, where his sense of fun
and unforced wit come to the fore. In the Granados and Godard
he is, as ever, the master of painterly wit and vivacity.
For adventurous listeners, for whom Cortot, Yves
Nat and Robert Lortat represent the acme of the French style,
this disc will be invaluable. Post-Diémer, but pre-Cortot
Risler is heard here in all his rhythmic vivacity, élan
and drive. His tone may not be the singing legato of the Leschetizky
pupils but his was a different school, his priorities were different
and this is a fine salute to his manifold talents.
Jonathan Woolf
Édouard Risler
(piano)