Ravel: Piano Works
Vanessa Wagner (piano)
Ravel: Piano Works
Vanessa Wagner (piano)
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There are plenty of deft touches here, but the music does not always flow
About
'Pavane pour une infante défunte', an early work, takes us into the world of dance that perfumes the musical world of Ravel. 'Gaspard de la nuit' in the French Romantic tradition, is a triptych inspired by three of Aloysius Bertrand's prose-ballads: Ondine, the water nymph; Le Gibet (Gallows), paints a gruesome picture of 'a bell tolling from the walls of a city, beneath the skyline, and the body of a hanged man, reddened by the setting sun'; Scarbo, depicts the night-time mischief of a mocking dwarf. We return to the dance with the bold 'Valses nobles et sentimentales', a series of waltzes written in 1911. Finally, 'Ma Mère l'Oye' (Mother Goose), shows Ravel's affection for his childhood days. Vanessa Wagner brings out the modernity of these scores, their sudden movements of violence, their moments of ineffable sweetness. She plays with rigour, intensity and a velvet touch.
Contents and tracklist
Awards and reviews
July 2014
There are plenty of deft touches here, but the music does not always flow
August 2014
There are good things in the faster numbers of Valses nobles and she manages to convey the vigour of the opening without becoming percussive...On the whole, Wagner is most convicing in the fast music; in slower numbers her rubato is arguably over-generous.