Mirrors and Echoes
Aïda Lahlou (piano)
rec. 2025, Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK
Resonus Classics RES10368 [61]

Aïda Lahlou’s debut album is advertised as a striking reimagining of Ravel’s Miroirs, which casts new light on its echoes across the global piano repertoire. By interweaving the Suite with overlooked miniatures from diverse traditions, she creates a dialogue that spans continents and centuries. The booklet suggests a “journey from innocence toward wisdom and self-actualisation”. I am not sure that this programmatic journey is essential to an enjoyment or appreciation of the music presented here. What is clear is that there are rarities by both well-known and less well-known composers.

The structure for this recital is Maurice Ravel’s well-known piano suite Miroirs. Its five movements explore impressionistic and symbolic soundscapes. Ravel dedicated it to members of Les Apaches, a group of avant-garde musicians, authors and artists. Each piece evokes a vivid image: fluttering moths in Noctuelles, sorrowful birds in Oiseaux tristes, Mediterranean wavelets in Une barque sur l’océan, Iberian rhythms in Alborada del gracioso, and distant bells in La vallée des cloches. Personal taste will provide a rationale as to whether Miroirs should rather not be excerpted. Ravel did conceive it as a unified cycle: he wrote the outer movements after the inner three, and that suggests a deliberate framing structure.

The recital opens with Ludwig van Beethoven’s remarkable Polonaise in C Major. The liner notes refer to it as “theatrical farcicality”. Yet Maurice Hinson, in his invaluable Guide to the Pianist’s Repertoire, suggests that it is “an interesting forerunner to Chopin’s essays on this dance form two decades later”. I enjoyed this bravura piece, much more than a frivolous dance.

Armenian composer Alexander Spendiaryan’s fourth number in Esquisses de Crimée, Air de danse ‘Kaïtarma’, is a folk-inspired miniature with a definite Asian resonance.

Aïda Lahlou has arranged a couple of numbers. One of them is Johannes Brahms’s second of Two Motets op.74 “Heiland, Reiß Die Himmel Auf”. The booklet explains that the “vivid, water-based imagery […] in which God’s grace is likened to a deluge, pre-empts the fluctuating oceanic shifts and overwhelming elemental power represented in Une barque sur l’océan.” I am not sure I get the comparison here.

Polish composer Alexandre Tansman absorbed many influences, including Chopin, Impressionism and Jazz. Andante cantabile, the first of his Four Piano Moods, epitomises the neo-classical style with its urbane exposition and gentle syncopation.

Ronald Stevenson, Lancashire-born Honorary Scot, wrote Three Scots Fairy Tales as pedagogical studies for children. Yet they are not dry as dust. Each Tale explores music made by a piper, a harpist and a fiddler. The first, heard here, is a little march-cum-jig for ‘piper’ which vacillates between these two forms. I wish Lahlou had recorded the other two.

Ernesto Lecuona, a Cuban-born composer, inherited the Spanish musical idiom. He also wrote popular songs and jazz standards. The Andalucia Suite evokes Iberian places. The two numbers heard are second and the last of the set: Andalucía and Malagueña. They are worthy of Albeniz and Granados.

Gara Garayev is a new name to me. A student and friend of Shostakovich, he was leading Soviet composer. He fused Azerbaijani folk traditions with modernist techniques across a wide range of genres, including ballet, symphony and film scores. No.5 from his 24 Preludes is lugubrious and introspective.

There is no suggestion why Ravel’s Kaddisch from Deux Mélodies hébraïques in an arrangement by Alexander Siloti is included in this recital. This gloomy piece does not inspire me.

The final track has no commentary in the liner notes. The internet tells me that Lamma Bada Yatathanna is an Arabic “belly-dance” song, which could be anything up to a thousand years old. We hear it here in an arrangement by Aïda Lahlou, which could easily have been written by several of the composers on this disk. It is very lovely, and it belies its original intention.

Born in Casablanca in 1998, Aïda Lahlou began piano study at age five; she won her first international competition at age eight. She studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and later graduated from Cambridge and Guildhall. Lahlou has performed across Europe, North Africa, and Asia. She appeared at the Wigmore Hall and the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, and collaborated with Vadim Repin, Nicola Benedetti and other high-profile performers. Her repertoire encompasses solo, chamber and concertante work. She has also directed operas and engaged in environmental activism.

The recording is clean, well-balanced and sensitive to every subtle detail. The liner notes do not analyse or describe the music on this disc. Dates for most of the pieces are missing, which is disappointing.

Aïda Lahlou’s recital may be framed by Ravel’s Miroirs, but its true strength lies in the breadth and interest of its programming. Whether or not one subscribes to the suggested narrative, the selection of music offers a variety styles, cultures and moods. Lahlou’s playing is consistently articulate and sensitive, and her arrangements reveal a thoughtful engagement with the repertoire.

John France

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Contents
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Polonaise in C Major, op.89 (1814)
Alexander Spendiaryan (1871-1928)
Esquisses de Crimée, op.9 no.4 Air de danse ‘Kaïtarma’ (1903)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Miroirs, M.43 V. La vallée des cloches (1904–1905)
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), arr. Aïda Lahlou (b.1998)
2 Motets, op.74, no.2: O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf (?1863/1864)
Maurice Ravel
Miroirs, M.43 III. Une barque sur l’océan (1904–1905)
Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986)
Four Piano Moods, No.1: Andante cantabile (1944)
Maurice Ravel
Miroirs, M.43 II. Oiseaux tristes (1904–1905)
Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
Three Scots Fairy Tales No.1: What the Fairy Piper Told Me (1967)
Maurice Ravel
Miroirs, M.43 I. Noctuelles (1904–1905)
Ernesto Lecuona (1895-1963)
Andalucía: Malagueña (c.1923-1928)
Gara Garayev (1918-1982)
24 Preludes: V. ‘Moderato’ (1952)
Maurice Ravel
Miroirs, M.43 IV. Alborada del gracioso (1904–1905)
Ernesto Lecuona
Andalucía: Andalucía (c.1923-1928)
Maurice Ravel, arr. Alexander Siloti (1863-1945)
Deux Mélodies hébraïques, M.22 No.1: Kaddisch (1914/1922)
Traditional, arr. Aïda Lahlou
Lamma Bada Yatathanna (?)