A Child’s Dream
Alexandra Dariescu (piano)
Tomo Keller (violin)
Richard Harwood (cello)
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
rec. 2025, St Judes Church and All Saints Church, London
Signum Classics SIGCD895 [52]
For her tenth album Alexandra Dariescu has chosen a diverse programme that reflects her life as a pianist; works that have travelled with her on that journey as well as music that shows her fascination with the forgotten, neglected and the newly composed. Among the former is the opening work, Mozart’s sparkling Rondo in D major, the first piece that she played with an orchestra. After the performance, which Dariescu tells us included a stumble as she walked on stage and sheets of music everywhere, the nine year old pianist confidently declared that she was going to be a concert pianist. She gives a spirited and stylish performance, conducting the Academy from the piano.
Dariescu also plays two chamber works influenced in part by her other ventures into concertante music. These are by Nadia Boulanger, whose Fantaisie variée Dariescu played with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Clara Schumann whose early piano concerto Dariescu has taken around the world, including its Melbourne premiere as well as making a recording it alongside the Grieg concerto (Signum Classics SIGCD799). Two of the three pieces by Boulanger were originally written for organ in 1911 but she went on to arrange them for cello and piano in 1914 adding a third piece. With a wonderfully melancholic opener, a folk-like canon and a boisterous and impish dance to finish they are a lovely trio.
Clara Schumann was influenced by the romances of Robert which were written with her in mind, especially the familiar F sharp major romance. She went on to write several for piano solo as well as the three for violin and piano recorded here. Certainly there are echoes of Robert here but Clara shows that she has her own voice and these three miniatures are beautiful examples of the genre which I am sure will be taken up by more violinists now that Clara’s muse is becoming better known. Clara is not the only female composer that Dariescu has championed and just a few are scattered through this fascinating recital. Emmy Schäfer Klein’s Child’s Dream that gives the recital its title is immediately appealing. Just one of a handful of composers that Dariescu discovered during lockdown Schäfer Klein remains something of a mystery. The music is relatively simple with a left hand melody under fast repeated chords and a lyrical central section but its breathless child-like joy is infectious and with Dariescu pushing its marked crotchet=132 to crotchet=204 it becomes a fabulous little Christmas scherzo.
Amy Beach gives us a children’s carnival in the shape of Harlequin dancing a scampering, very French sounding galop while Florence Price’s Goblin and the Mosquito is a fun little picture portrait, Goblin bumbling about while the darting mosquito buzzes overhead. Once again, in a theme we find several times in this recital, this is tied in to a concertante work that Dariescu plays, Price’s concerto in one movement and two more composers share that connection, Germaine Tailleferre with her Ballade and the piano concerto by Stravinsky’s teacher, Leokadiya Kashperova. Dariescu was invited to play Tailleferre’s ballade by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and if it is half as attractive as the Romance played here it is a winner. Dariescu describes the romance as like a bottle of Parisian elegance. Gentle, flowing and radiant and I don’t have anything that sums it up better. Kashperova’s piano concerto entered Dariescu’s repertoire courtesy of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and proved a revelation. She plays a short song without words labelled no.5 and arranged for piano by Dr Graham Griffiths who has done a great deal of work on uncovering Kashperova’s music. The booklet does not mention what the original source for the piece was…perhaps a song? It is a charming miniature which recalls mid-19th century models and gives no particularly Russian essence despite her studies with Rimsky-Korsakov and Anton Rubinstein. Female composers are very well represented her and we remain with them for one more work, A map of laughter by American composer Missy Mazzoli. I am fairly sure I would not have picked up on the fact that it was inspired by Schubert’s fourth Moments Musicaux if the booklet did not state the fact but one can hear the moto perpetuo style and insistent nature in both pieces.
Siloti’s transcription of Bach’s B minor prelude, so heartfelt and probably the best thing he did and Villa-Lobos’ O Polichinelo bring sharp contrasts of light and shade to the recital but before it ends we hear two more rarities, the wonderful mazurka by Chopin pupil Carl Filtsch and Tudor Ciortea’s Joc ţigănesc, Dariescu’s childhood party piece. As I sat down to try my hand at Filtsch’s lovely mazurka which I had already heard from a recording by Cyprien Katsaris (Frédérik Chopin Institute NIFCCD137-138) I was amazed to discover that he died aged just fifteen and that this mazurka appeared when he was thirteen…Ah what could have been. Folk music of another country inhabits Ciortea’s Joc ţigănesc, Gypsy game, a fiery and sparkling dance; Dariescu’s final comment that coming back to it now feels like meeting an old friend; familiar, joyful and effortless (thanks to bigger hands!) is felt in every toe tapping bar of this impressive dance and indeed throughout this joyous, wide ranging and personal recital. It is a fabulous collection to mark her tenth disc.
Rob Challinor
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Contents
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Rondo in D major K.382 (1782)
Emmy Schäfer Klein (dates unknown)
Child’s Dream from Christmas Album Op.8 (publ.1882)
James Lee III (b.1975)
Humble Birth (2021)
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
Three Pieces for Cello and Piano (1911/1914)
Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
Three Romances for Violin and Piano Op.22 (1853)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) arr. Alexander Siloti (1863-1945)
Prelude in B minor BWV.855a (1722)
Missy Mazzoli (b.1980)
A Map of Laughter (2015)
Amy Beach (1867-1944)
Harlequin from Children’s Carnival Op.25 (1894)
Florence Price (1887-1953)
The Goblin and the Mosquito (1951)
Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983)
Romance (1913)
Leokadiya Kashperova (1872-1940) arr. Graham Griffiths
Song without Words No.5
Carl Filtsch (1830-1845)
Mazurka from premières pensées musicales op.3 No.3 (1843)
Tudor Ciortea (1903-1982)
Joc ţigănesc No.6 from Suite on Transylvanian folk themes
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
O Polichinelo No.7 from A prole do bebê Book 1 (1918)
