Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)
Piano Concerto, Op 127 (1943)
Suite d’orchestre No 3 ‘Dans le style ancien’, Op 93 (1930)
Eduardo del Pueyo (piano)
Jean Absil (1893-1974)
Piano Concerto, Op 30 (1937)
Hommage à Lekeu, Op 35 (1939)
André Dumortier (piano)
Orchestre National de Belgique/Fernand Quinet
rec. 1955, location not provided
Digitally remastered from Decca BA 133185 and Decca LX 133013
Forgotten Records FR2197 [67]
Decca LPs are restored here in fine style. Jongen’s Piano Concerto is a relatively late work, dating from 1943, ten years before the composer’s death. It was recorded in 1955 by the distinguished Spanish pianist Eduardo del Pueyo (1905-86), who has his own 5-CD edition on Eloquence to his name. Dryness was the preferred temperature for Parisian recording studios, so those with tastes that incline to the lush should be aware of this distinct French preference for aural clarity. It suits Jongen well, as it does his concerto’s initial Franckian flirtation and subsequent busy figuration, elegantly negotiated by del Pueyo who attends to the numerous moments of near-Rachmaninovian chording here – rich in sonority if not necessarily rich in memorability. The slow movement is quietly atmospheric, and the finale offers a giocoso brightness in typically Gallic style – as sparkling clear as a mountain stream.
The Orchestral Suite No 3 is an earlier work dating from 1930, is in four movements and is full of flair. The opening is rather neo-classical, its resonant fugal writing grandly developed, and is big, bold and confidently handled. The Sarabande abjures the easy pleasures of pastiche, instead flowing warmly, adroitly decorated, whilst the witty Menuet plays off winds and strings finely. The lithe finale is rhythmic ebullient and ends with a firmly punctuated percussion. This is a charming work, engaging and quite broadly conceived, ‘in the style of’ baroque dance movements, but with a contemporary command of colour and lively rhythmic writing.
Jean Absil was a generation younger than Jongen and his exceptionally compact Piano Concerto – it’s only thirteen minutes long – dates from 1937. Sensibly wasting no time on an orchestral introduction, he pitches his protagonist right in and the work benefits both from pianist André Dumortier’s digital precision and the recorded clarity. Neo-classicism haunts the central slow movement and there’s a strong, decisively articulated finale. Absil’s Hommage à Lekeu was written a couple of years later and is a brief, six-minute ‘Andante symphonique’. It flows, as the title suggests, not as an elegy but as a homage, strongly mobile and celebratory.
Throughout, the Orchestre National de Belgique plays with idiomatic control under Fernand Quinet.
There are the usual internet links to the two soloists and the conductor but no notes. Readers might know that Quinet didn’t record much but did record Marcel Poot’s Second Symphony for Decca.
This disc offers a good retrieval of some niche Belgian works, heard in clean, clear restorations.
Jonathan Woolf
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