Gioacchino Rossini
is well-known as composer of many comic
and serious operatic masterpieces. He
is widely considered the most important
opera composer of the first third of
the nineteenth century. Fewer people
are familiar first-hand with his Péchés
de Vieillesse, or Sins of Old Age.
This is the name Rossini gave to a large
collection of chamber music he composed
during the last eleven years of his
life, between 1857 and 1868. These pieces
remain relatively unknown to the general
public and are only too rarely performed
in concert halls. That this neglect
is unjust is amply demonstrated by the
pianist Stefan Irmer with the fine selection
on this release.
Stefan Irmer has joined
forces with the German publishers MDG
- which stands for the rather evocative
Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm,
which has as its address, appropriately,
the Bachstrasse - in a bold and very
welcome effort to record many, if not
all the solo piano pieces in Rossini’s
Péchés de Vieillesse.
The six CDs that have come out so far
have not been listed by MDG as a series,
but by now it certainly seems to be
one, proving there is a public interest
in these fine works.
All of Rossini’s many
operas were composed with a rigorous
classical model as their basis. Rossini
frequently and often successfully deviates
from or expands the boundaries of these
formal models, blurring but at the same
time enhancing the classical structures
and finding new dramatic ways for expression.
The same applies to his piano pieces.
Like most of Rossini’s compositions,
including even the most humble, these
possess the style, class and grandeur
of the Classical age, infused with wit,
sensitivity and genuine feeling - though
not always simultaneously, of course.
The razor-sharp wit and painful drama
which characterize Rossini’s comic and
semi-serious operas are equally present
in Rossini’s instrumental pieces.
Although some titles
suggest otherwise, the piano pieces
are not really programmatic. Titles
like La Venitienne (the Venetian
girl) or La Savoie aimante (The
lovely Savoy girl) seem to function
more as guiding ideas, or sources of
inspiration to the composer (which the
listener can choose to follow or not)
than an introduction to literal storytelling
à la Richard Strauss’s
Ein Heldenleben. Their abstract
mould allows the vivid colours of the
music to invoke in the listener his
or her own images and profound feelings
of beauty and carefree youthfulness,
of painful ironies and melancholy, and
of sentimentality and outright joy.
Thus, while it may certainly have been
inspired by the city in which its composer
had spend his last years, before leaving
behind his native Italy for Paris permanently,
to me Une pensée à
Florence (A thought of Florence)
is primarily a beautifully sensitive
work which tells a story of restrained
joy and sadness at the same time, and
of sentimentality without pity. Of course,
it has also given me a beautiful reminiscence
of a city which, I must admit, I have
never visited!
As can be expected
from one of the great geniuses of nineteenth
century opera, Rossini makes very effective
use of the whole range of the piano,
often producing a lush fullness of sound,
evoking the effect of a full orchestra.
Nevertheless, as in his orchestral writing,
Rossini’s music is always transparently
structured, making it easy to hear all
the notes and melodies, without being
anything near easy-listening.
Both points are clearly illustrated
in the magnificent Tarantelle pur
sang (full-blooded Tarantula). In
addition, this piece has an unexpected
witticism up its sleeve, with the dance
theme being followed by a ‘passing procession’,
a slow section that completely lives
up to its accurately descriptive title;
an operatic and visual device par
excellence inserted into a piano
piece!
Stefan Irmer has taken
up the task of presenting us with a
wide selection of the pearls of Rossini’s
latter-day output. We are fortunate
with the efforts of this pianist who
is very much at ease with Rossini’s
deceptively simple-sounding music. His
touch is appropriately light and tender,
thoughtful and enthusiastic. From the
century-old Steinway he draws a warm,
comforting sound, which is helped by
the natural acoustics. MDG attach great
importance to the audiophile quality
of their recordings. They do not modify
or manipulate the sound in any way,
but instead make use of the specific
acoustics of each, carefully chosen,
recording location. The result here
is a warm and perfectly natural sound,
creating the ambience and intimacy of
a real salon concert, as if the listener
was actually present at one of Rossini’s
famous soirées musicales.
The fine musical selection
is complemented by an informative essay,
in which the artist gives his views
on each piece, their form and how they
relate to each other. This and the background
information on Stefan Irmer is given
in English, French and German.
The selection on this
CD is a well-balanced mix of moods,
styles and tempi; ranging from a march
to dance themes, to pseudo-religious
movements and barcaroles. All in all,
this recording is bound to give the
listener sustained enjoyment and the
opportunity to get a more comprehensive,
better-rounded picture of the man and
his music.
Joost Overdijkink
Stefan Irmer (piano [Steinway D, 1901, nr. 100398])
