Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
À Moune
Berceuse sur le nome de Gabriel Fauré (1922)
Sonate pour violon et piano (1923-27)
Tzigane (1924)
Sonata for violin and cello (1921)
Lina Tur Bonet (violin)
Marco Testori (cello)
Pierre Goy (piano, Lutheal piano: Tzigane)
rec. 2022, Musical Instruments Museum, Brussels
CHALLENGE CLASSICS CC72916 SACD [51]
This programme is built around Maurice Ravel’s special relation with the violinist Hélène Jourdan-Mourhange, who was a close friend of the composer and affectionately referred to by him as ‘Moune’. He would often consult her when writing for the violin, and almost all of these pieces were either written for or dedicated to her, with the virtuoso techniques in Tzigane very much in debt to her expertise.
The brief Berceuse sur le nome de Gabriel Fauré eases us gently into the soundworld of this recording, the period character of which is enhanced through the use of gut strings on the violin, and an exceptional 1935 Hautrive piano made in true Art Déco style. This results in a darker, more wood-panelled and candle-lit sort of sound than you might usually expect, but this is all in the nature of this project. The Sonate pour violon et piano of 1923-27 is well known, with its Blues second movement and artful and at times polytonal lyricism in the first. Ravel actually considered the violin and piano to be incompatible as a duo but you wouldn’t know it from the music, and this is a sensitive and stylish performance with a satisfying blend in the sound of the instruments.
Tzigane is recorded here its version accompanied by a luthéal, in this case a Pleyel from 1910. This keyboard instrument is a sort of hybrid piano with register stops that can have a similar effect to a prepared piano, or that can affect timbre through exploiting harmonics on the strings. After about four minutes of the usual solo violin, the entry of this strange cimbalom-effect of this instrument is quite startling, and the gypsy character of the work is heightened throughout, making it even more entertaining and at times hilariously riotous.
The Sonata for violin and cello was dedicated to Debussy but premièred by Hélène together with the cellist Maurice Maréchal, and is considered by Lina Tur Bonet to be “one of Ravel’s bravest compositions.” Ravel wanted the cello to sound like a violin, and the two instruments circling around each other in the same register is quite a feature of the piece. This is complex music and demanding for the players, who in this case dive into its gritty nature with gusto, especially in the Très vif second movement. The elán in the final Vif, avec entrain ensures a rousing end to the programme.
There are of course alternative recordings for these pieces, but what you are acquiring here is a ‘concept album’ intended to take us back to the early decades of the 20th century and its atmosphere of musical exploration and discovery. In this regard this SACD hybrid recording is very effective, right down to the uneasy incomprehension met by the Sonata for violin and cello at its première. The programme deliberately moves from simpler music to this more substantial and demanding score, but with Ravel’s “great genius, colourful harmonies, the perfect machine of his music and his amazing fantasy” alongside his ‘muse’ in Hélène Jourdan-Mourhange, this is an out of the ordinary chamber music recording that is certainly worth anyone’s time.
Dominy Clements
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