COMPOSERS: Schmitt
LABELS: Gega New
WORKS: Musiques intimes, Book 1; Musiques intimes, Book 2; Nuits romaines; Small Gestures; Prélude... pour une suite à venir
PERFORMER: Ivo Kaltchev (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: GD 249
Surprisingly little of Florent Schmitt’s large output is available on disc and in historical perspective he still has to emerge from the shadows of his friends and contemporaries Ravel and Debussy. This disc of world premiere recordings is at the very least useful for putting a handful more of his works into the public domain. Ivo Kaltchev is a Bulgarian pianist trained in the Russian tradition and now based in the USA. His feeling for colour suits the two sequences of Musiques intimes with their languor and changing moods, from the sultry ‘Doux et calme’, which keeps sounding as if it’s going to turn into a strange pre-echo of Casablanca’s ‘As Time Goes By’, to the weird high-level harmonics of ‘Glas’. While impressionism is the key here, Schmitt’s Prélude provides a more astringent pendant and is crisply played. Matthew Rye
Schmitt: Musiques intimes, Book 1; Musiques intimes, Book 2; Nuits romaines; Small Gestures; Prélude... pour une suite à venir
Surprisingly little of Florent Schmitt’s large output is available on disc and in historical perspective he still has to emerge from the shadows of his friends and contemporaries Ravel and Debussy. This disc of world premiere recordings is at the very least useful for putting a handful more of his works into the public domain. Ivo Kaltchev is a Bulgarian pianist trained in the Russian tradition and now based in the USA.
Our rating
4
Published: January 20, 2012 at 1:15 pm