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

 

 

alternatively
Crotchet


Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Pour le Piano (1901) [12 :54]
Children’s Corner (1908) [16 :05]
Estampes (1903) [13 :39]
La plus que lente (1910) [4 :22]
Deux arabesques (1888) [6 :49]
Pièce pour le vêtement de blessé (Page d’album) [1 :00]
L’isle joyeuse (1904) [6 :05]
Jean-Bernard Pommier (piano)
rec. no details supplied.
VIRGIN CLASSICS 6994712 [61:14] 

Experience Classicsonline


No recording details are given for this disc, but it would appear to be a reissue of one which first appeared in 1989. The accompanying booklet carries an anonymous essay I would have described as inadequate except that it contains the information that the short Page d’album was composed during the First World War for a charity dedicated to – as the title suggests – “dressing the wounds of soldiers.” I had never heard this piece and can find no other reference to it, neither in Lockspeisers’ two-volume biography nor in Guy Sacré’s monumental study La Musique de Piano. It’s a gem: a charming little waltz, slightly sad, quite perfect and characteristic. Jean-Bernard Pommier, born in Béziers and one of the most highly respected French pianists of his generation, plays it beautifully and I’m delighted to make its acquaintance.

Otherwise, this very inexpensive disc opens with the first major piano work of Debussy’s maturity, the modestly titled Pour le Piano. Pommier is very free with the pulse in the opening Prélude, making rather more of the composer’s instructions to hold and wait than many other pianists do. It is effective and convincing though, and the reading is very satisfying, even if one would wish for rather more in the way of piano and pianissimo playing. In the Sarabande he captures wonderfully well the synthesis of Debussy’s emerging style, with its backward glance, and the very romantic sound generated by big, sonorous chords. The opening of the final Toccata is hardly piano, disappointing since the rest of the reading has real stature. He brings out brilliantly well the inner voices in the miraculous middle section, but at the climax of the piece hardly respects the composer’s wish that the piano should sound like an instrument without hammers.

Pommier is wonderfully successful at imitating the talented - but businesslike - piano pupil getting through his exercises in the first piece of Children’s Corner, a little less so when the child gets bored and doodles, somewhat romantically, at the keyboard. The heavy tread of the elephant in Jimbo’s Lullaby is very skilfully brought out, but whoever is serenading the doll in the third piece is rather skittish and abrupt. The Snow is Dancing is the odd piece out in this collection, chilly, if nothing like as cold as those footsteps in the snow we encounter in the first book of Preludes. It’s a surprisingly dramatic piece, which Pommier brings out well, but there isn’t much childlike magic. An over-expressive approach means much of the simple charm of The Little Shepherd is lost, and the Golliwogg’s Cake Walk is clipped and unsmiling.

Pagodes, the first piece of the Estampes, receives an excellent performance, calm and poised, and with a well drawn contrast between the passages requiring perfect clarity of texture and those where a dreamy, impressionistic wash of sound is acceptable. La Soirée dans Grenade is very successful too, the Spanish atmosphere well evoked and sustained. Near the end, though, a flamenco guitar and castanets fleetingly appear, not quite so “light and distant” as the score demands. Then the wonderful Jardins sous la pluie begins quite a few notches above the required pianissimo and continues its hard-driven and sadly charmless way right to the end.

Having established just the right atmosphere in Debussy pseudo salon piece, La plus que lente, Pommier’s over-willingness at forte and above then rather ruins it. The hammers are in evidence once again even in the two arabesques, readings in which the pianist refuses to linger. L’isle joyeuse is Debussy at his most exuberant, but the work can seem episodic if tempo relations are not carefully managed, and I don’t find Pommier totally succeeds at this. The climax of the piece, which should be exultant, is just loud.

I have admired for many years a DG Debussy recital by Tamás Vásary which includes many of the pieces featured here. It is now available as part of a double album with the two books of Preludes in fascinating and very individual readings by the late Italian pianist Dino Ciani. Michelangeli is, in my view, unmatched in Children’s Corner (also DG). Jean-Bernard Pommier’s playing is technically brilliant, and many of the pieces work well, but in too many others I find his Debussy relentless and lacking in charm. Others will welcome the extreme clarity of articulation and pedalling, and for those, if the programme appeals, this disc is satisfying indeed.

William Hedley



 
 


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




Return to Review Index

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.