La Belle Époque
Weiyin Chen (piano)
rec. 2025, Théâtre populaire romand, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
Claves 50-3114 [66]
Weiyin Chen’s exploration of La Belle Époque features music associated with that period of flourishing arts dating from the end of the Franco-Prussian war through to the opening of the first World War, 1871-1914. She couples composers of the period with works in the repertoire Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets russes who based their first season in Paris where they presented a saisons russes with works by Anton Arensky, Nikolai Tcherepnin, Alexander Borodin as well as short excerpts from a host of Russian composers in Le festin.
Lili Boulanger lived in the heyday of the era and wrote some incredible music in her short life including the three pieces for piano dating from the very end of la belle époque. Of an old garden is an impressionist painting that hints at Debussy and Fauré and its twists of harmony suggest a nostalgic walk, perhaps happening upon forgotten corners and remembering past times while the second piece, of a clear garden is a slow waltz in the same vein. Chen displays an impressive range of colours and texture in both along with a subtle rubato. I might have asked for a more wrenching outcry in the middle section of the first where the pianissimo rises to a sudden sustained fortissimo that quickly fades but lovely playing at the lower dynamics makes up for this. She finds plenty of character and humour in the buoyant and spirited cortège.
The ballets russes performed two works by Schumann; Carneval orchestrated by Liadov and Rimsky-Korsakov amongst others and, in 1914, Papillons in Tcherepnin’s orchestration. The rubato that I liked in the Boulanger pieces isn’t quite as effective here – the little pauses before a phrase end or a sforzando, noticeably in the third pieces are not entirely to my taste – but overall it is a good performance with lovely tonal control; just listen to the warmth and richness of the chords in no.6 or no.8. She captures the dance well, the swagger of the waltz in no.8 or in the flow of the main section of no.10 and if the work does not have the wide variety of scenes that a work like Carneval has in spades Chen nonetheless seeks out all the characters at this masked ball. After one of the most famous pieces of the era, Clair de lune, Chen turns to Debussy’s beloved Chopin and his familiar waltz in C sharp minor that appeared in the ballet Les Sylphides which Michel Fokine choreographed for the saisons russes. He commissioned Alexander Glazunov to orchestrate this piece to add to the four Chopin works that Glazunov had already arranged for his ballet Chopiniana and commissioned other composers to orchestra other works of Chopin to complete the piece.
Tchaikowsky’s complete ballets Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty appeared in later seasons of the ballets russes’ schedule but only the Trepak from the Nutcracker appeared in their repertoire, featuring in the compilation Le festin. Chen plays an arrangement of the suite from the latter by Stepan Essipoff, about the whom the booklet is silent. In fact this Russian sounding pianist was actually Croydon born Arthur Bransby Burnand who had studied with Clara Schumann before settling in London and writing under his own name as well as using the pen-names Essipoff and Anton Strelezki. This arrangement is fairly straightforward and certainly nothing like the grand virtuoso version written by Mikhail Pletnyev or the Tchaikowsky ballet paraphrases by Paul Pabst. As far as I can see it is hardly distinguishable from Tchaikowsky’s own version of the suite, even down to using the same devices such as alternating octave notes rather than repeated notes in the march or Dance of the sugar plum fairy; evidently neither composer liked repeated notes though there are more difficult things to navigate in the arrangement. Another ballet, Manuel de Falla’s el amor brujo gave us the famous Ritual Fire Dance though it was his three cornered hat that the ballets russes performed. Chen is clear and correct here as well as everywhere but having listened to José Iturbi’s playing it yesterday this is quite restrained by comparison.
Chen finishes with her short improvisation on Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, choreographed for Diaghilev’s second season. It concerns itself primarily with the violin solo and first theme of the sea and Sinbad’s ship but is doesn’t stick rigorously to Rimsky-Korsakov’s material. It completes a well-constructed and enjoyable recital that has enough variety to interest the pianophile as well as the general listener.
Rob Challinor
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Contents
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Trois Morceaux (1914)
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Papillons Op.2 (1829-31)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Clair de lune from Suite Bergamasque L.75 (1890 rev 1905)
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Waltz in C Sharp Minor Op.64 No.2 (1846-47)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikowsky (1840-1893)
Nutcracker Suite Op.71a (1892, arr. c.1905, Arthur Bransby Burnand, writing as Stepan Essipoff)
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
Ritual Fire Dance from El Amor Brujo (1914-15)
Weiyin Chen (b.1983)
Improvisation on Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade
