Martin Cousin (piano): Fantasies (Convivium Records)

Fantasias for Piano
Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988)
Fantasia Contrappuntistica, Op 24 (1956)
Lawrence Rose (b 1943)
Piano Fantasia, Op 24 (2018)
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873 – 1943)
Morceaux de Fantaisie, Op 3 (1892)
Manuel de Falla (1876 -1946)
Fantasia Baetica (1919)
Martin Cousin (piano)
rec 2023, Menuhin Hall, Stoke d’Abernon, Surrey, UK
Reviewed as digital download
Convivium Records CR103 [74]

I’d confidently assert that if asked, pretty much anybody who is familiar with the piano canon and its outliers could design a recital based around the fantasia. I’d equally wager that very few would come up with anything as thought-provoking as this uncommonly interesting disc from Martin Cousin. As with any good programme, it’s not just the intrinsic merit of the pieces themselves but the light they cast on the other selections that makes for a satisfying musical experience, and here Cousin positively surprised me at every turn.

He opens with Kenneth Leighton’s Fantasia Contrappuntistica (subtitled ‘Homage to Bach’) from 1956. To say this is a bold choice is an understatement. It’s a relatively unknown work by a composer who was by all accounts a fine pianist, but as a composer not really remembered for his piano writing. Its title obviously has immediate associations with Busoni, and although the piece has little in common sonically with Busoni’s piece of the same name, it won the Busoni prize for composition in 1956 (played by a teenage Maurizio Pollini). Leighton’s work has real intellectual rigour at its heart, but at the same time is just riveting to listen to, especially when played with the authority, clarity and understanding that Cousin gives us here. Played as five continuous sections, it’s ingeniously structured so that the grandeur and counterpoint of the opening develops into a thrilling toccata before a much more lyrical and expressive canon grounds the piece emotionally. Two fugal sections conclude the work. Both feel essential, a completely organic development of what has gone before and the way the second fugue reworks elements of the chorale as it works towards its end is deeply rewarding. For comparison, of the two extant recordings I could find, Margaret Fingerhut’s on Chandos (CHAN9818) is well played and as part of her survey of Leighton’s piano music is heard in a different context, but I like the sense of discovery Cousin brings and he has slightly better recorded sound.

Where could one go from what is, in the most positive sense, such an intimidating opening? Cousin opts for something pretty new: Lawrence Rose’s Piano Fantasia, written in 2018 and dedicated to him. It’s a fascinating work, an example, as Rose writes in the booklet notes, ‘of imagination taking precedence over conventional styles and forms’. The six untitled continuous movements are intended as individual character pieces, and although pleasingly varied have some unifying features: the chromatic writing which never quite resolves, the reappearance of melodic or rhythmic forms in different movements, the fragmentary contrapuntal writing and the cadential closing of each. The feeling of listening to the whole is one of incremental but satisfying progression, a large picture slowly coming into focus. Cousin clearly has huge sympathy with Rose’s creative intentions and is the most articulate advocate for an attractive and original contribution to the fantasia genre.

Then in what is perhaps the most surprising twist of all, we are launched into a superb performance of Rachmaninov’s Morceaux de Fantaisie Opus 3. Cousin has a fine reputation as a Rachmaninov pianist and if people buy the disc because of the Morceaux then all well and good, but I want to stress how important these pieces feel to the integrity of the recital as a whole. The nineteen-year-old Rachmaninov seems to be experimenting here with the possibilities of what a fantasia in miniature could be, an aim completely congruent with this album’s overall exploration of the genre’s potential and scope. Heard in this context and played with the freshness and tonal colour Cousin brings, I found my appreciation of these famous pieces renewed, not an everyday occurrence.

The start of the final work on the disc, the Fantasia Baetica by Manuel de Falla feels at first as if might come from the same sound world as the Serenade which closes the Rachmaninov. Then de Falla starts to crank up his distinctive approach: melodic repetition, exotic harmony and an overtly showy set of challenges for the pianist. Artur Rubenstein, for whom it was written, famously gave up playing it after a small number of performances because of its difficulty and length. It has become a reasonably popular work since of course, my favourite recording hitherto being Javier Perianes in an appropriately colourful interpretation on a disc devoted to De Falla (Harmonia Mundi HMC902099). Cousin, clearly not intimidated by the piece’s reputation, gives an idiomatic, highly enjoyable performance. Such is the ingenuity of the programme, De Falla’s exploration of the fantasia via Spanish dances and song feels the perfect way, possibly the only way, to end the journey.

It could be argued that one other common thread that links virtually all of these pieces is their technical difficulty. We’ve all heard instances where inadvertently or deliberately a performance ends up being all about the virtuosic demands a piece makes. This is almost invariably problematic. On this disc that is never an issue. Cousin’s immense ability is just a given and that puts the focus squarely on the music and him in our debt, as are the Convivium engineers who have provided excellent recorded sound. I wish more piano recitals were as thoughtful as this.

Dominic Hartley

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