La belle époque des Geloso
Pénélope Bigazzi (1844-1914)
Pieces for piano
César Geloso (1867-1960) 
Chamber music & mélodies
Miren Adouani (piano), Marie-Hèlène Ruscher (mezzo-soprano), Pascale Servranckx (violin), Delphine Gosseries (cello)
rec. 2024
First recordings
Ciar Classics CC024 [69]

Here is a welcome novelty: light, tuneful, typically uplifting music from La Belle Époque by pianist child prodigy Pénélope Bigazzi and her son César Geloso, friend, associate and even co-performer with the likes of Fauré, Massenet and Saint-Saëns. Strictly speaking, her five pieces were composed a decade before what is generally accepted to be the start of that era around 1870, but they are already proleptic of the gently insouciant melodiousness we associate with the style; waltzes and dances in general predominate, with a hint of piquancy injected by the frequent employment of chromatic harmonies and fleeting intimations of sadness. We are told that these are world premiere recordings, which is surprising given their accessibility.

Pianist Miren Adouani has the lion’s share of the performances here; her playing is alternately strong, sweet and sensitive and she has the measure of the variety of modes here, from the soulful gravity of the five melodies setting poems by Maurice Rollinat to the flamboyant, concluding Toccata. As an opera buff, I particularly enjoy Bigazzi’s fantasy on themes from Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, which opens this recital. The child of opera-singer parents, she was immersed in the style and wrote this as a tribute to the soprano singing the role of Oscar. The second item is another Italian-inspired number, then we move to Spain, where she had settled, in Madrid, for three highly characterful pieces – French and Italian composers almost invariably capture the Iberian spirit so successfully in their music. We are given further variety in the two attractive chamber music items here: the Berceuse for violin and piano, and  Sea Breezes for instrumental trio, presumably written for Geloso’s second wife, who was English. Mezzo-soprano Marie-Hèlène Ruscher has not the most distinctive or striking of voices but she sings her seven songs tastefully; I only wish that space had been found for the texts in the otherwise lavishly illustrated booklet, beautifully designed and replete with useful notes and evocative photographs. The bouncy Chanson des oiseaux has a kind of music-hall approachability which contrasts strongly with the settings of the Rollinat songs whose music is more obviously parlé, centring more on natural French speech rhythms in a manner we might recognise from more familiar songs by Debussy and Ravel.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable recital of essentially unknown music which will especially appeal to lovers of that peculiarly Gallic admixture of sentimentality, delicacy and elegance.

Ralph Moore

Contents

Pénélope Bigazzi
1 Capricho para piano sobre la Ballata de Oscar en la ópera Un ballo in maschera de Verdi op. 17 (1861)
2  Oh! mia cara Italia, souvenir  op. 12 (1860)
3  Saludo a Madrid, polka-mazurka  op. 13 (1860)
4 La Asturiana, schottisch
5 Higuanama, Habanera de salón  op. 16
César Geloso
6 Chanson d’avril (1890)
7 Scherzando (1890)
8 Valse-Caprice (1894)
9 Berceuse pour violon et piano (1894)
10 Dans la nuit op. 16,  poème de Georges Enoch (1899)
11 Chanson des oiseaux,  poème de Clélie Fasileau (1899)
Mélodies sur des poèmes de Maurice Rollinat (1898) : 
12 De la même à la même
13 Le convoi funèbre
14 Violette
15 Douleur muette
16 Le Moulin
17 Scherzo espagnol (1911)
18  Sea breezes (brises de mer),  valse en trio
19 Interlude, trio (1925)
20 Menuet Pastoral op. 35 (1926)
21 Naïveté 
22 Soliloque (1926)
23 Il était une fois (1924)
24 Toccata (1924)