Etsuko Hirose (piano)
The Complete Denon Recordings 2003-2007
rec. 2003-07, Japan
Danacord DACOCD992-995 [4 CDs: 287]

Having just had Etsuko Hirose’s latest release Scheherazade (review) in my player I was delighted to welcome this four CD set containing her very first releases, recorded for Denon between 2003 and 2007. Denon approached her after she took first prize in the 1999 Martha Argerich International Piano Competition in Buenos Aires; Argerich herself described her as an extraordinary sensitive and very brilliant young musician and her further statement that her virtuosity is really exceptional is absolutely borne out by the playing on these discs.

Hirose chose an audacious recital of transcriptions as her calling card and that exceptional virtuosity is heard from the first note to the last though it is her singing tone that impresses just as much. Rachmaninov’s mammoth transformation of Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesfreud ably displays the startling fluency of her fingers and she matches its fire with buoyant rhythms and tenderness, even in the most taxing passages. The same can be heard throughout this recital; the waltz from Gounod’s Faust is for me one Liszt’s best transcriptions and Hirose’s is a stunning reading in all respects but just listen to the selection of Schubert songs arranged by Liszt for her melodic gifts, singing out the vocal line with effortless grace and ease. Erlkönig is of course renowned for its pianistic challenge even in the original and if Hirose gives no sense of this in her reading it is to the more lyrical items, Ave Maria or Der Lindenbaum that we turn to for her miraculous sense of control and tonal balance. There is a sense in Die Forelle that three hands are playing, so winningly does she bring out the melody from within the bouquets of decoration that surround it. After the high octane whirl of the Faust waltz Hirose wisely eases our way into the final piece, the grand Bach-Busoni Chaconne with a beautiful and heartfelt Prélude, fugue and variation by César Franck in the lesser known transcription by Austrian pianist Jörg Demus. Without checking the score I have to say I can’t see the difference between this and the Harold Bauer transcription but the lovely playing dismisses such details. Hirose’s strong dramatic sense comes to the fore in a distinctive Chaconne in a performance of contrasts; skilfully judged lines in the lyrical sections and sudden bursts of speed, more so than I have heard before in the extrovert passages.

The success of this first transcription disc led to a second and if the repertoire is generally more familiar in the concert hall today – Stravinsky’s Petrushka Suite or Ravel’s La Valse – she opens with a relative rarity nowadays, Carl Tausig’s reworking of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance. Once popular, even recorded by the great Benno Moiseiwitsch, it is not heard that often nowadays so this full bloodied version is very welcome. Tausig added treacherous left hand runs to Weber’s right hand passage work, an octave glissando to rival that in Islamey and generally much more athletic pianism that phases Hirose not a jot. Liszt’s sixth Soirée de Vienna after Schubert is better known though it is not as ubiquitous as it once was so it is nice to hear such a light and elegant performance of this delicious valse caprice. These two pieces and Ravel’s La Valse give the album its title and all dance with gay abandon. La Valse is a tour de force with Hirose putting in much of the material that Ravel left as ossias and even, it seems, more orchestral detail that the composer judged beyond the scope of two hands. Before that, and staying with the dance theme, are two ballet suites; Pletnev’s reworking of Tchaikowsky’s Nutcracker and Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Considering the theme of the album it is a shame that Pletnev omitted the waltz from his suite, perhaps deciding that Percy Grainger had already done a grand job with that. He still managed to encompass the feel of the ballet and introduce its popular highlights, the march, dance of the sugar-plum fairy, trepan and pas de deux. Both suites are brimming with verve and colour and I feel could stand against any others on the market.

After the delirium of Ravel’s waltz tribute it is sobering to enter the world of Hirose’s third album Fantasies. Opening with Mozart’s D minor fantasies she shows that she is equally at home in the classical world as in the high wire acts that have gone before, scaling down that gigantic pianism to this concise drama. Schumann’s Fantasies in C is often at the centre of any fantasies album and Hirose brings it across well even if this more in its detail perhaps than its large scale structure; I can’t fault her voicing and phrasing but I occasionally wanted a little more lightness of spirit alongside the tortured yearning. Little hesitations in the declamatory sections sound a little too stentorian and pull against the forward momentum that is needed here, especially in the episodic first movement. She is excellent in the second movement, her lightness of touch allowing the heavier, thicker textures to ring without sounding overbearing and the white water knuckle ride that closes it is secure under her fingers. I might suggest the final movement is a trifle over-pedalled for my taste but that is a minor quibble in an otherwise well wrought movement. Rachmaninov’s Fantasy pieces op.3 were written when he was just nineteen and include the prelude that he was forced to play at every verse end. They are an accomplished set of pieces that are not heard that often in their entirety though all are still familiar. They are rich in Russian melancholy though that is joined by humour in the Punchinello and quirky serenade which Hirose chooses to play in its more bejewelled 1922 revision. She ends with Liszt’s fantasia quasi Sonata, the Dante Sonata with its infamous tritones and chromatic melodic patterns that serve as thematic basis for the whole work and lead a path to his transformation of themes in the B minor Sonata. She revels in its virtuosity and drama, bringing character aplenty though she is as capable in the lyrical music, the music of heaven rather than hell, where she employs a pianissimo that contrasts strongly with the work’s harried and tempestuous outbursts.

Her final release for Denon was devoted to Chopin and his Parisian neighbour, the enigmatic Charles Valentin Alkan whose second Morceaux dans le genre pathétique provided the album’s title le Vent. Chopin’s B flat minor sonata opens proceedings in a performance of strength and drive. The opening movement is grand and passionate without perhaps adding anything to what has already been said before. The scherzo is rhythmically gripping and while I appreciate the lilt of the pi lento she doesn’t seek to charm. I love the crescendo in the return of the minor section of the funeral march, a wonderfully controlled gathering of intensity and release. She is all fog and mist in the enigmatic finale that emerges quickly from the ashes of the march; dazzling finger work certainly but it wonder if it makes those bars where Chopin does write a recognisable pattern stand out a little too differently. Overall it is still an impressive performance. Alkan’s le Vent has a relatively simple basis; set its chorale-like chordal melody against a backdrop of chromatic runs. Liszt may have made more imaginative use of the device in his second Ballade or étude de concert La Legislature but the awe-inspiring scale of this piece and the extensive use of the bass register of the piano must have left contemporaries shaking their heads in wonder. There is barely a let up for the poor pianist in the entire piece especially considering that much of the writing has to be played at a whisper. From one test to another and the second book of Chopin’s études. This is a lovely set, technically secure without feeling the need to dazzle with extremes or effects. Occasionally she opens up the throttle for that little extra frisson, the breathless fourth étude or the octaves of the tenth for example. I appreciate the light and shade of the final étude where her surges of dynamics match its sometime-nickname the Ocean; a fitting finale to a very satisfying set. Study and variations come together in the final piece on the disc, Alkan’s hugely inventive and quirky Aesop’s fables. Hirose’s relative restraint in the Chopin études gives way to madcap revels in what must be one of the weirdest sets of variations of the romantic age; no other composer could have penned it. Bursting with energy Hirose dispatches its challenges with disdain and paints it in fabulous colours; bubbling excitement in the questioning of variation 3, pomposity in the martial fifth variation, ultra crisp clarity in variations 6 and 7 and so on through their dizzying variety. This is a fabulous ending to the record of Hirose’s Denon years and Danacord are to be thanked for bringing Hirose’s wonderful early pianism back into the catalogue.

Rob Challinor

Contents
CD1 Chaconne
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962) arr. Sergei Rachmaninov (1870-1943)
Liebesfreud (1931)
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) arr. Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
O du, mein holder Abendstern from Tannhäuser S.444 (1849)
Franz Schubert (177-1828) arr. Franz Liszt
Die Forelle S.564 (1846)
Ave Maria S.558 No.12 (1837-38)
Erlkönig S.558 No.4 (1837-38)
Der Lindenbaum S.561 No.7 (1839)
Charles Gounod (1818-1893) arr. Franz Liszt
Waltz from Faust S.407 (1861)
César Franck (1822-1890) arr Jörg Demus (1928-2019)
Prelude, Fugue and Variation Op.18 (1860-62)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) arr. Ferrucio Busoni (1866-1924)
Chaconne from the Violin Partita B.W.V.1004 (1893)

CD.2 La Valse
Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) arr. Carl Tausig (1841-1871)
Invitation to the dance Op.65
Franz Schubert arr. Franz Liszt
Soirée de Vienne No.6 S.427 No.6 (1846-1852)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikowsky (1840-1893) arr Mikhail Pletnev (b.1957)
Nutcracker Concert Suite (pub.1978)
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Three movements from Petrushka (1921)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
La Valse (1919-20)

CD.3 Fantasy
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Fantasie in D minor K.397 (1782)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Fantasie in C Op.17 (1836-39)
Sergei Rachmaninov
Morceau de Fantasie Op.3 (1892)
Franz Liszt
Aprés une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi Sonata S.161 No.7 (1849)

CD.4 Le Vent
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Sonata No.2 in B flat minor Op.35 (1839)
Charles Valentin Alkan (1813-1888)
Morceaux dans le genre pathétique No.2 Le Vent Op.15 No.2 (1837)
Frédéric Chopin
12 Études Op.25 (1832-35)
Charles Valentin Alkan
Douze études dans tous le tons mineurs Op.39 No.12 Le festin d’Ésope (1857)

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