Mel Bonis CD releases - Chamber Music for Flute and 1st String Quartet

[Wheesht]

Two new CDs are announced on the Mel Bonis Association website, one with chamber music for flute and the other with her first string quartet played by the Quatour Giardini (this is available for download from Qobuz and iTunes, the physical CD will be out on 4th November):

-Pièce opus 189
-Sonate en ut # mineur
-Air Vaudois
-Une flûte soupire
-Suite orientale avec flûte, violoncelle et piano
-Scherzo
-Suite en trio pour flûte,violon et piano
Avec Jean-Michel Varache, flûte, Jérôme Grangeon, piano, Anne Copery, violoncelle et Saskia Lethiec, violon

See here: http://www.mel-bonis.com/actualite.htm

There is also a link to a Radio France broadcast presenting the two new CDs (from about one hour into the programme):
http://www.francemusique.fr/emission/en-pistes/2014-2015/en-pistes-10-20-2014-10-00

[DennisS]

I am always on the lookout for flute music and this CD caught my eye. I did try to hear sound bites before buying this CD but there weren't any on mel-bonis.com. I also explored the francemusique.fr site (as Wheesht suggested, about one hour into the programme but only got a rough idea of the musique). I did a trawl on Google for Mel Bonis music and came across the following:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hommage-Debussy-Bonis-Odeon-Partos/dp/B000XIJ2SU/ref=sr_1_9?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1415713307&sr=1-9&key

For this CD there are soundbites on both Amazon and also jpc.de. The first work on this CD is a Mel Bonis work "Scènes de la forêt". This work is coupled with a Lazarof work, a Partos work (both entitled Hommage à Debussy) and of course the well known Debussy sonata which served as inspiration for the other 3 works on this CD. I was immediately so impressed by the Mel Bonis work that I  ordered it shortly afterwards and have since been listening to this CD with much enjoyment. I am already very fond of Scènes de la forêt and it is no hardship to have another version of Debussy's sonata. I am though still to get to grips with the Lazorof and Partos works, which, to be honest, impress me less.

Based on what I heard on the Hommage à Debussy disk, I decided to order the Musique de Chambre avec flûte CD anyway. I am very, very pleased that I did so! The mel-bonis.com website is very professional, based in France and I received the CD within 4 days of ordering it. Reading the liner notes I learned that Mel Bonis went to the Paris Conservatory and attended César Frank's classes. One of her classmates was Claude Debussy! From this preamble, the readers on this forum will already have some idea of Mel Bonis's music. Her music is composed with verve, inspiration and finesse and although inspired by Frank and others, still composes with an original voice. To quote the liner notes, her "writing for the flute is fluid, expressive and romantic, as opposed to the piano's offering intense even violent harmonies, creating a clever tension between the two instruments". I fully agree with the first part of this statement but have to say that I did not find the piano writing "violent"!

I am enjoying listening to the music on both CDs very much and if the readers on this forum like Debussy , if they like well writen chamber music for piano, flute and cello/violin, they will like both CDs.

I am going to investigate other Mel Bonis CDs. Thank you Wheesht for this recommendation.

[DennisS]

Having listened merely twice to the sound bites of the second Mel Bonis CD mentioned by Wheesht in this thread, i.e. the Piano Quartets by Mel Bonis and Gabriel Fauré, I have just ordered this CD from mel-bonis.com. I ordered the CD partly for the Mel Bonis work but even more so for the Fauré Piano Quartet No 1 Opus 15. The Fauré work really gabbed my attention straight away and I found the work quite exciting, especially movements 2 and 4! Sound bites can be heard on

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/piano-quartets/hnum/6363859

I am now beginning to really appreciate superb chamber music, much of it discovered on UC! That's not to say that I didn't like chamber music before (there have always been specific pieces that I am really fond of), it's just that I now seem to be discovering so much more of this music that I really like and want to listen to more and more. I have always been first and foremost a lover of symphonic music but UC is constantly enlarging my horizons!!!

Do any members know the Fauré work and what do they think of it? Perhaps this should be a new thread? I would just add that the Mel Bonis work is lovely too but doesn't quite excite me in the way that the Fauré piece does!

[eschiss1]

The Fauré is probably one of his two best-known chamber works, at a guess (along with his first - of two - violin sonata(s), Op.13) so I'm guessing quite a few people here do know it.  I've heard it live at least once, and have two CD recordings (and one digitally-uploaded recording, iirc) of both piano quartets (the other is in G minor, Op.45. Also: two piano quintets (lateish works); two cello sonatas (rather late works); the mentioned two violin sonatas; a piano trio Op.120, a string quartet Op.121 (his last two published works); many other individual chamber works throughout his output.)  Quite a few of these can be found and read and/or heard online, by the way, @ YouTube, IMSLP, etc. A relatively sung composer by now, as goes, and to my mind deservedly so- which does not mean everyone has heard of him, or that introductions are never necessary...

[Alan Howe]

Dennis: why not try this superb and ridiculously cheap box set of Fauré's chamber music...?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Faure-Chamber-Music-Gabriel/dp/B0002VOXJG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415980870&sr=8-1&keywords=faure+chamber+brilliant

[DennisS]

Thank you Alan for your recommendation of the 5 CD Brilliant box of Fauré's chamber music. I am looking at the Amazon site as I type this post. A second hand set in very good condition is going for under £7:00! I think I am going to buy it. Before placing my order, I am going to check out jpc.de for sound bites. Many thanks for the tip.

[DennisS]

Couldn't find sound bites on jpc.de. Gave up search. Have ordered the second hand set on Amazon based on your recommendation, Alan. I am sure I won't be disappointed!

[Alan Howe]

You won't! It's superb!

[eschiss1]

BTW Adrian Corleonis- who wrote some very interesting and informed-seeming reviews of Fauré recordings (among other things) for Fanfare - had a very mixed review about the Brilliant set, I should note (he pointed out, iirc, that some of the recordings/performances were spot-on in both recording quality and in catching Fauré's sometimes elusive argument "on the wing", but others were simply beaten out by much better competition, only some of it, unfortunately, still available on CD. I hope he was mistaken and have found the boxes I've bought from the same label (digitally)- one of Roussel's remarkable chamber music (unlike the Fauré, which is a collection from different sources, this was taken all from a multi-CD Olympia set recorded in a brief set of sessions) and another of Tallis choral works- to be quite good...)

Just meant as an aside though; I do not mean to imply that I think you'll be disappointed with the Fauré set ordered. It has music I don't have, actually- the song cycle La bonne chanson, for instance... (there is a lot of vocal music in Fauré's output, unsurprising for someone whose best-known work may be his Requiem. Hyperion has, or is still working on, a complete series of his songs. I should try to get a listen to some of those discs sometime- I think i'd like -that- very much...)

EMI France once had a 4-CD set (2 boxes of 2 CDs each) with Fauré's (violin and cello) sonatas, "miscellaneous" (and quite lovely!) pieces (flute sicilienne, Après une rêve transcription (hey, I -played- that in my viola-rehearsing days... ), etc.) and piano trio in one box (haven't heard) and his quartets (piano and string) and quintets on the other (I have this- very good, I think, if one can find it... Collard, Quatuor Parrenin, others. Some of these same performances are in fact also in the Brilliant CD box aforementioned )

What I think I know about Bonis is intriguing.  I seem to recall looking at the official website a time or two...

[Alan Howe]

The point about the Fauré/Brilliant box is that it is cheap as well as pretty darn good.

[eschiss1]

Agreed, agreed, sorry. *nod* I wasn't too depressed (so to speak) by the prices or quality of the ones I bought from them myself and will be having a lookout for others next I can.  (They also have a -rather more expensive, because larger (100 CDs, though I think partially available separately) - set called "Russian Legends" with a very wide range of music - wide in terms of eras and well- and not-so-well-known music, from a number of different (Soviet-era, mostly) soloists- that's _quite_ good. Including e.g. Oistrakh's performances of Catoire's violin sonatas. But I had the good fortune of receiving that as a sort of hand-me-down.)

[eschiss1]

As to Bonis' string quartet no.1 Op.69, pub. by Demets in 1905, that sounds like something IMSLP people or others, at the risk of annoying Edition Furore (which I think is charging fair sums of money just for reprinting and, I'll grant, adding a contextualizing preface, but not for actual _editing_, generally speaking), might be able to scan/reupload if the original Demets score/parts can be found in good condition... I wonder...
More to any point, I wonder what her take on the string quartet medium was in her two acknowledged works; 1905 was an interesting year for the string quartet, of course (not to say that 1905 date-of-publication implies anything about date of _composition_). Will see about catching the Radio France program and finding out. Thanks.

[Wheesht]

As this thread seems to lean more and towards a discussion of Fauré (and I am absolutely happy with Fauré being discussed), perhaps it would be fair to both composers if any further discussion of Fauré happened in a new thread that bears his name... always assuming that more people may want to add their thoughts to the Mel Bonis thread. (just a suggestion, and I see it has just happened while I was laboriously typing this post)

[Alan Howe]

Quite right. Let's keep to Bonis here. My apologies for getting off-topic.

[Wheesht]

No need to apologise! It was just my Swiss mind with its penchant for orderliness that got the better of me — and the fact that I think Mel Bonis is much more unsung than Fauré and probably not always because she deserves to be. That she was a woman can't have worked in her favour. I think the Mel Bonis association is doing a splendid job btw.