Search - Gabriel Faure, Pierre-Alain Volondat :: Faure: Piano Music

FAURE MOST CHARMING

Melvyn M. Sobel | Freeport (Long Island), New York | 01/31/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Bought primarily because of Faure's own piano reductions of the Pavane, Op. 50 and the Pelleas et Melisande, Op. 80, I was immediately won over by the hypnotic opening Mazurka, Op. 32, a piece so wistful that one finds himself haunted by it. [Indeed, the music here reveals a Faure at his most relaxed.] Both piano reductions work exceedingly well and, because of their intimacy, glow with an even more autumnal warmth. The "Sicilienne" from Pelleas is particularly moving.



The Valse-Caprices, which I hadn't heard for twenty-five years, beguiled me all over again. These works are in a class by themselves and are, in essence, exactly what their titles imply: capricious waltzes of the most inventive, quirky, passionate and disquieting beauty. [Faure's Impromptus merely hint at what the Valse-Caprices actually achieve.]



Pianist Pierre-Alain Volondat is to be commended for his remarkable sense of poetic balance and imagination. A delectable disc, and a wonderful reprieve from the beautiful yet somewhat downbeat discursiveness of this composer's Nocturnes and Barcarolles.



The sound afforded him is warm and real.



[Running time: 67:06]"

Volondat's Fauré: très plus excellent...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 10/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

".

Very enthusiastic about Pierre-Alain Volondat's skill and artistry.

He does a fine job with his countryman Fauré's salon-pièces, catching their inward subtlety and at times outwardly bouncing dynamics as well.



Programme of course includes the Pelléas music with Chopinesque Mazurka and Valse-caprices.

(See too Glenn Gould's arrangement of Ravel's poème chorégraphique, La Valse Glenn Gould Edition: Berg, Krenek, Webern, Debussy & Ravel.)

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Fauré: Nocturnes Nos. 1-6 / Theme & Variations, Op. 73

Fauré: Nocturnes, Vol. 2

Gabriel Fauré: The Complete Music for Piano

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Fauré: Barcarolles (Complete); Ballade (Original Solo Piano Version)

Fauré: Piano Works Vol. 5

Musique Française - Deux Pianos, Quatre Mains

Fauré: Four Hand Piano Music

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Gabriel Faure (20th-Century Composers Series)

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