Richard Galliano (accordion)
Around Gershwin
rec. 2023/24, Studio la Menuiserie, Noisy-le-Sec, Paris, France
Reviewed as WAV download
Pentatone PTC5187229 [57]
Richard Galliano has been the uncrowned King of the Accordion since he twice won the “world accordion cap competition” in 1966 and 1967. Now at age 73 he is still in top shape and his fabulous technique is undiminished. Which genres he belongs to is difficult to pin down. He was early influenced by contemporary jazz, in particular Clifford Brown’s improvisations, and he has cooperated with jazz musicians, like Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans and Wynton Marsalis to mention only three, but he also worked with singers like Juliette Greco and Charles Aznavour, and with the tango master Astor Piazzolla, whose music he has frequently returned to. In fact, he belongs everywhere in a borderless landscape that could stereotypically be called “crossover”.
On his latest odyssey, he keeps company with George Gershwin, another crossover musician, and on their voyage they encounter a handful of classical composers, who willingly lend their most popular works to Galliano’s treatment – Galliano calls it adaptations for accordion – Rachmaninoff, Satie, Debussy, Ravel and even Fauré. The outcome of this is a stimulating hour of surprises and illuminations.
He begins with the heavy-weight Rhapsody in Blue from 1924, which Gershwin was commissioned to write for Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. It was composed in only five weeks and orchestrated by Ferde Grofé. The famous clarinet glissando, however, was not Gershwin’s idea. It was Whiteman’s clarinettist Ross Gorman who during the rehearsal improvised it, and Gershwin immediately demanded that he play it in the concert. Galliano plays it elegantly on his accordion, and after this spectacular opening follows a note by note transcription, orchestrated with impressive feeling for colours and nuances and played with rhythmical freedom, which means that the music swings more relaxedly than any orchestra can, however rhythmically alert the individual musicians are. I can feel that the slow middle section is too thickly instrumented, but this is a matter of personal taste. It is a great achievement, and I urge readers to give it a listen, provided they are partial to the accordion. Those who are not have probably not started reading this review at all.
After a brief interlude (18 seconds) titled On the train with typical railway noises, reminding us that Gershwin got the inspiration to Rhapsody in Blue during a train journey to Boston, we get a relaxed reading of one of my favourite Gershwin evergreens, Lady be Good, followed by a likewise toned-down version of Rachmaninoff’s grandiose C-sharp minor prelude. Temporale, another short interlude, seems to refer to nature, and is followed by Erik Satie’s Lent from Gnossiennes, which is lyrical and slightly bluesy. Summertime is tastefully improvisational and seems to be something deeper than just a lullaby. Living is not as easy as the text says in the cruel world down south! Debussy’s Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum from Children’s Corner, is a virtuoso adaptation played at breakneck tempo, and Galliano’s dexterity is impressive. Brouillards (Fog) sits hand-in-glove with Gershwin’s A Foggy Day, but the gloominess is dispersed by Ravel’s airy and poetic Pavane.
Two of Gershwin’s finest songs, But not for Me and The Man I Love are lovingly treated in jazzy improvisations, and in between Satie’s beautiful Gymnopédie No. 1 comes as a caressing summer wind, before the final number, which begins with I Loves You Porgy from Porgy and Bess and then gradually and seamlessly creeps over to Gabriel Fauré’s Après un rêve.
This imaginative and varied programme proves emphatically that Richard Galliano still sits safely on his throne as the King of the Accordion.
Göran Forsling
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Contents
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
1 Rhapsody in Blue *
Richard Galliano (b. 1950)
2 On the train
George Gershwin
3 Oh, lady be good! *
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
4 Morceaux de Fantasie, Op 3 No 2, Prelude in C-sharp minor *
Richard Galliano
5 Temporale
Erik Satie (1866-1925)
6 Gnossiennes No 4, Lent *
George Gershwin
7 Summertime *
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
8 Children’s Corner, L. 113 I. Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum *
Richard Galliano, George Gershwin
9 Brouillards – A Foggy Day *
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
10 Pavane pour une Infante Défunte, M. 19 *
George Gershwin
11 But not for me *
Erik Satie
12 Gymnopédie No 1 *
George Gershwin
13 The Man I Love *
George Gershwin, Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
14 I loves You Porgy – Après un rêve *
*Adaptations for accordion by Richard Galliano
