Pascal Dusapin (b.1955)
Sept études pour piano (1998-2001)
Piano Works No.1 Did it again (2016)
Wataru Hisasue (piano)
rec. 2025, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Munich, Germany
Genuin GEN25944 [59]

The French composer Pascal Dusapin is an admirer of Edgard Varèse and was a pupil of Iannis Xenakis. He also acknowledges other influences on his music, such as jazz and French folk music. He may be best known for his cycle of orchestral pieces Seven Solos, which despite the title are not concertante works (review). He is an accomplished pianist but he had written nothing for the piano until he produced this set of Sept études. There has been one successor, Did it again, also given the description Piano Works No.1. That suggests that there may be more, although that was ten years ago and, so far, there have been none.

The cycle of études alternates slow and fast numbers. That may remind the listener of Berg’s Lyric Suite, which does the same. Each étude is based on a single idea gradually transformed over the course of the individual piece. Although some passages sound quite challenging, there is little exploration of the virtuosity normal in piano études: they are perhaps studies in composition rather than in piano technique.

Dusapin originally gave the études titles, but withdrew them. The opening étude begins with two alternating notes which gradually get embellished with a constantly flickering texture. The second étude is playful is a rather Bartókian way. The third features tinkling sounds in the high register, rather like the chiming of bells. The fourth, another fast one, has fast and irregular rhythmic patterns. The fifth is slow and quiet, with very few notes and an obsessive circling round one of them. The sixth has a constant tremolo with isolated notes coming in above and below it; the texture gradually thickens. I found this the most interesting étude musically. The seventh étude begins with slow single notes and is quite poetic. It gradually speeds up and becomes quite lively.

I understand that Dusapin does not plan his works in advance but composes them bar by bar. It is perhaps not surprising that some of the slow ones sound in places like improvised doodling rather than worked-out compositions. I also find the études, which last never less than five minutes and usually nearer ten, are much too long for their material. They do not begin to compare with their near-contemporaries, the études by György Ligeti, or even with those much simpler but still impressive by Philip Glass.

As a bonus, we have the single piano piece Did it again, written in an idiom so close to Messiaen that it is almost pastiche. I liked it much more, perhaps because of this.

The pianist here, Wataru Hisasue, has won various prizes, including one for the performance of Did it again, of which this is the first recording. He has clearly given a great deal of care to his scrupulous preparation and interpretation of these works. The recording is good and the booklet helpful. There is a previous recording of the études by Vanessa Wagner which incorporates photographs by the composer. Dusapin fans will not be put off by my comments; others should go for the Seven Solos.

Stephen Barber

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