Rarities of Piano Music at Schloss vor Husum 2025
rec. live, 16-23 August 2025, Schloss Husum, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Danacord DACOCD1019 [78]

Hong Kong pianist Chiyan Wong gets this selection from Husum 2025 off to a great start with Naji Hakim’s Variations on “Auprès de ma blonde”, based on a French ballad from the 18^th century. The song refers to a woman complaining to the birds about her imprisoned husband. After what seems an unpromising start, the piece develops into twelve minutes of pure virtuosity. Hakim, a Franco-Lebanese composer, is currently visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. His compositions include works for organ, orchestra, and voice.

Wong then presents two attractive vignettes byGustave Samazeuilh, the Prelude and the Française, from the Suite in G. Its six ‘antique’ movements are no Baroque pastiche but a modern re‑imagining of the form, akin to Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin or Warlock’s Capriol.

Frank Bridge’s Valse capricieuse from Three Sketches is one of his loveliest numbers, though the first and second, April and Rosemary, are better known. The Valse is melancholy, more at home in an Edwardian drawing room, yet full of musical and technical interest. Aline Piboule brings her magic to it, illuminating its gentle sadness and subtle technical sparkle.

Of exceptional interest is Piboule’s other number, Guy Ropartz’s substantial Nocturne No.1. It balances a severe opening and a lyrical middle section crowned by an imposing lead up to the quiet coda. Ropartz fused Post-Romanticism and Impressionism in these pages. Anyone expecting Chopin or Field-like figurations will be disappointed.

The French composer Cécile Chaminade is sometimes written off as a writer of salon music. Yet her best work shows a technical assurance and emotional range which far exceed that lazy label. She is well represented on this disc. Roland Pöntinen plays the “elaborated” version of Les Sylvains whose lovely melody and rich accompaniment are offset by contrasting material full of broken chords, arpeggios and glissandi. The title, a reference to fauns, suggests an elusive, delicate mood.

Mark Viner offers Chaminade’s two pieces from the Poème provençal. L’Ondine is hardly a companion to Ravel’s creation, yet the liner notes suggest that the “delicate passages which frame the piece” portray the water‑nymph Ondine, while the “louder sections concern the sea‑god Poseidon”. Pêcheurs de nuit opens with an uneasily calm atmosphere before moving into a stormy middle section.

Franz Liszt’s Hymne à Sainte Cécile de Charles Gounod transcribes an instrumental piece for solo violin, harp, organ and orchestra. It is unlikely Liszt’s transcription was ever heard with any frequency until Leslie Howard’s monumental complete recordings of the piano music. I am not a fan of Gounod, but Liszt deployed in this work all the tricks of his trade to create a vast structure. MarkViner gives it a most convincing account.

Daniel Grimwood plays Adolf Henselt’s lovely transcription of the long-forgotten Romance du Comte Wielhorsky No.1. This well-balanced realization fuses the original accompaniment and the vocal line into a delightful whole. Viner’s other contributions to this disc are two of Carl Baermann Jr.’s Études: No. 2 in A minor and No. 12 in C‑sharp minor. The latter is especially ambitious, with propelling figurations that are dramatic and charged with suppressed urgency.

Saskia Giorgini plays American composer Amy Beach’s A Hermit Thrush at Eve. She distils accurately notated birdsong into glowing, impressionistic piano writing, creating a contemplative miniature of striking poetic delicacy.

Illia Ovcharenko performs two short pieces by the Polish pianist-composer Ignaz Paderewski. Chant d’amour, the second movement from his Album de Mai, contrasts a folksong-like opening with an animated middle section. In Cracovienne fantastique from Humoresques de concert, Paderewski uses triplets, octaves, chromatic runs and neat figurations to create a spirited reimagining of the regional folk style.

The final number in this recital is also my favourite. Ronald Stevenson made countless arrangements and transcriptions of a wide range of “found” music, including popular songs. Ivor Novello wrote his well‑loved “We’ll Gather Lilacs in the Spring” for the stage show Perchance to Dream. Stevenson gives this cherished tune the full cocktail‑piano treatment. Kenneth Hamilton dispatches it with panache.

Peter Grove’s helpful liner notes in German and English offer valuable background on these rarely encountered composers and their music. One minor erratum: the notes say that Frank Bridge was born in 1897 rather than 1879. And surely the recording dates are off. The rear cover says 16-21 August 2025, but the actual concert prospectus shows 16-23 August.

This latest volume from Husum once again demonstrates why the festival remains indispensable for anyone drawn to the byways of the piano repertoire. The performances are consistently distinguished, the programming imaginative, and the recorded sound remarkably vivid for live conditions. Together they offer a compelling reminder that the piano literature extends far beyond the familiar canon, rewarding curiosity with discovery at every turn.

John France

Contents
Naji Hakim (b.1955)
Variations on “Auprès de ma blonde” (2013)
Gustave Samazeuilh (1877-1967)
From Suite in G (publ. c.1911): Prelude; Française
Chiyan Wong (piano)

Frank Bridge (1879-1941)
From Three Sketches: Valse capricieuse (1906)
Guy Ropartz (1864-1955)
Nocturne No.1 (1911)
Aline Piboule (piano)

Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Les Sylvains, op.60 (1892)
Roland Pöntinen (piano)

Cécile Chaminade
L’Ondine, op.101 (1900)
From Poème provençal, op.127 (1908): Pêcheurs de nuit
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Hymne à Sainte Cécile de Charles Gounod, S.491 (1865)
Mark Viner (piano)

Adolf Henselt (1814-1889)
Romance du Comte Wielhorsky No.1 (?)
Carl Baermann Jr. (1839-1913)
From Etudes, op.4 (1877): No.2 in A minor; No.12 in C-sharp minor
Daniel Grimwood (piano)

Amy Beach (1867-1944)
A Hermit Thrush at Eve, op.92, No.1 (publ.1922)
Saskia Giorgini (piano)

Ignaz Paderewski (1860-1941)
From Album de Mai, op.10 (publ.1884): No.2 Chant d’amour
From Humoresques de concert, op.14, Cahier II, (1887-1888) No.6 Cracovienne fantastique
Illia Ovcharenko (piano)

Ronald Stevenson (1928-2015)
“We’ll Gather Lilacs”by Ivor Novello (1893-1951) (1980)
Kenneth Hamilton (piano)

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