Gounod (& Gounod/Liszt) piano works
A lesser-known side of Gounod
For all he attention on Faust and his Bach arrangement, Ave Maria, the music of Gounod remains elaivly unexplored. This is a welcome disc, therefore. Iroically, I begins with just that Ave Maria in its piano guise, Méditation su le premier Prélude de Pino de J. S. Bach, the melody nicely in igh-=hand octaves, delivered with a nice sense of legato here by Warren Lee:
The sic Romances sans paroles of 1849-71 were composed over a spread of some years, but do exactly what it says on the tin: these are Gounod's equivalents of Mendelssohhn's Lieder ohne Worte. Gounod's music here is unpretentious, his melodic inspiration unflagging, as we can hear in the first, "La Pervache" ("The Periwinkle"):
The stream ("Le Bissau") that follows is appropriately flowing, and Lee paces this beautifully, the left-hand absolutely evocative of the title, while one can hear evey note, the right-hand melody (single-line hee) nicely eloquent:
The first two date from 1849; the third, "Le Soir" (The Evening) takes us back to around 1840-42; indeed i is an evocation of Gallic serenity; Lee gives it a nicely improvised-sounding close. The set ends with a "Chanson de prinemps" (Song of Spring), dedicated to Saint-Saëns. The music seems to sway gently in the breeze before the final "Le Lierre" (the Ivy), This las published when Gounod was in Britain (!) during the Franco-Prussian War, and this is is less vocal, more pianistic. the two make a nice, complementary pair:
Even more pianistic is the Prélude in C-Minor (published in 1877), dramatic, and arguably more towards a Beethovenian axis. The programme then twist towards Venice via barcarolle, La Veneziana; a perfect contrast. Here's the latter:
Interestingly, the G-Major Impromptu of 1888 seems rather literal in Lee's hands; not so the Nocturne, Souvenance (Remembrance), Somtimes songful, sometimes overly pianist, always nostalgic:
The arrangement of a movement from Gounod's Messe solenelle de Sainte Cécile (the Offertoire), moves the music from G-Major the deeper resonances of A flat-Major on piano. It is difficult to bring off though, with its chordal basis, and Lee clearly does his best, even if not totally successful,
There is some nicely outgoing dance music in Faust; here is a piano dance, a Grande valae brillante in D-Major, which would make a perfect encore to recital :
The set of six Etudes in parathion for Bach's Well-Tempeed Clavier are fascinating, ad star as testament o Gounod's admission for JSB. While the Prelude to the opening Prelude and Fugue in G-Major might not sound Bachian, it holds very Bachian traits; the fugue is more towards the Master. oe fascinating, to me, is the juxtapositions of Chorale and Fugue in the second piece (hinting towards Franck, of course):
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The C-Major Prelude moves from Bach territory to more Gounod ground; but it is the sheer beauty of the D-Major (No. 4) hat impresses so much, contasted with the hader touch of the Fugue (nicely delineaed by Lee). The F-Major Fugue is fascinating in its chomacism (again preceded by a Chorale), a real find. Lee peforms the final choale (A-Mino) pefectly (list to the resonances afte the chod strikes; the balancing is exceptional). The Fygue is fascinaing, with a Baoque dance subject.
Moe Bachiana with a Gavotte in A-Minor dating from 1887(-93?), a purportive escapee for a lost keyboard suite. Finally, a Funeral Mach for a Marionette, once used as them music for Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
While we're here in Gounod territory, a mid of the same of the pianist Kenneth Hamilton in a performance of Liszt's sparkling inscription of Gounod's Waltz from Faust, and the Hymn to St. Cecelia, which both end the wo discs of Kenneth Hamilton Plays Liszt, Volume 2: Salon and Stage:
The Naxos disc is available from Amazon here; the Hamilton/Liszt here (strangely, the Hamilton, which is two well-filled discs, is cheaper than Naxos' one!).
