If there is any composer that the performer of which needs to fully understand before approaching musically, it’s César Franck, his complex forms and harmonic progressions need a thorough examination before it can be convincingly projected to an audience. Michel Dalberto needs no introduction to the French nor to the international audiences, having won the Leeds Competition and a dominant figure in the Paris Conservatoire. His understanding and affinity to this music are fully apparent throughout.
Franck’s masterful “Prelude, Choral & Fugue”, which opens the album, receives a superb reading here. A deep voiced, profound and exciting account as any, with the second subject in the first movement and the Choral arpeggios sounding spectacular on the Bösendorfer concert grand chosen for this recording. The difficult fugue needs special care when practically all of the themes which appeared in the work are intertwined together. This demands the greatest care technically, as well as minding the color shading and pedal work, all finding the pianist at his best, meeting the challenges yet giving the sense of an anguished struggle.
Dalberto’s quiet, mesmerizing cantabile is on full display on the opening bars of the Piano Quintet, where his first entrance is nothing but chilling. The Novus Quartet which joins in this masterpiece is a fabulous partner, giving the proper support to the solo piano passages yet wonderfully engaged in the many contrasting episodes of the piece. The slow movement is especially moving, combining a sense of stilled beauty and subtle animation.
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This generous album also includes the “Prelude, Aria & Finale”, with a good, solid performance, yet one that can tend to the heavy-handed at certain bars such as in the finale, where the bass line can sound a bit bombastic. Nothing wrong with the first two movements, though, which are given with a wonderful singing tone (the Aria is particularly lovely).
As comparisons go for the solo pieces, Bertrand Chamayou’s album of the two solo pieces we have here along with the concertante works is one of the greatest Franck albums in the catalog. Also, one can never forget Artur Rubinstein’s famous take of the Prelude, Choral & Fugue from the late 1960s. Dalberto’s account of this piece is no less memorable. Yes, it’s that good.
As for the quintet, this is a distinguished addition to the catalog, with this piece appearing to be particularly difficult to record and capturing all of its subtleties. Sviatoslav Richter’s account with the Borodin Quartet is memorable, of course, but a shame that the Borodins play the strings part as a Tchaikovsky String Quartet rather than late 19th-century French music. A more recent attempt by the Quatuor Danel with pianist paavali Jumppanen is quite good, yet the account we have in this new album is no less successful.
The album finishes with a short excerpt from the “Prelude Fugue and Variations”, also closing-off Chamayou’s album in its original form for piano and harmonium and here appearing in an arrangement by Bauer and the performer. The playing is so lovingly executed, one wishes there was more time to fit in the entire piece. Excellent recording too, made by Little Tribeca at La Salle Philharmonique de Liège.
César Franck – Piano Works, Piano Quintet
Michel Dalberto – Piano
Novus Quartet
Aparté Music, CD AP203
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