Music for piano (incl. PCs 1 & 2, plus CC) by Marie Jaëll

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming from Ediciones Singulares:
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Ediciones%2BSingulares/ES1022

[Mark Thomas]

We've had radio recordings of the two Piano Concerti for a few years, but this is very welcome news, and particularly so for the Cello Concerto.

[Alan Howe]

I hadn't noticed the CC - I've amended the thread title accordingly.

[pianoconcerto]

The list of performers does not say who plays which works.  My guess is that this set includes the same performances of the piano concertos available previously on radio and youtube since all of those performers (below) are included in the group listing:

Piano Concerto 1:  Romain Descharmes/O nat. de Lille/Joseph Swensen

Piano Concerto 2:  David Violi/O nat. de Lille/Joseph Swensen

We will see in January.

[Alan Howe]

The performers in the two PCs are indeed as in the previous post, above. As to the idiom, they shout LISZT! pretty loudly (especially PC2) - but very enjoyably and often very expressively. This is Hyperion RPC territory with a vengeance...

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, Liszt thought very highly of her.

[Alan Howe]

I'm sure. It's first-class second-rate music, though - if you see what I mean.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I know just what you mean. Yes.

[Alan Howe]

Didn't Bernard Levin once talk of 'good bad music'?

[eschiss1]

How does one go from "second-rate" to "bad"? that would mean "good" = "first-rate"... which is ridiculous on its face.

[Alan Howe]

It's more complicated than that, Eric. For Levin, Wagner = good, Verdi = bad. IIRC.

[eschiss1]

Speaking in guest, I may not be that far from agreeing with him.

(No, that was not a spellcheck mistake, just a caprice.)

(Verdi's quite lovely string quartet aside on the one hand and a fair amount of Verdi-ish early Wagner on the other, of course.)

[BerlinExpat]

I don't care if it's 'first-class second-rate music' or 'good bad music' it's all a joy to listen to.
I'm only disappointed that unlike the first two volumes in Ediciones Singulares' composer 'Portrait' series of releases (Gouvy & Dubois) the 'Portrait' of Marie Jaëll isn't a broader representation of her music.
The gravest 'error' to my mind is the non-inclusion of the symphonic poem Ossiane which Liszt apparently praised and led to him nicknaming Marie Jaëll Ossiana! Also there is no choral music and no chamber music although she wrote both. Instead we have three discs of which 37% is piano music.
The excerpts from the Dante pieces are really superfluous as there's a complete recording of the set on the Querstand label with Cora Irsen as soloist. There's already a CD of the Cello Sonata and another of the G minor string quartet available, so it would have been interesting to at least have had the Violin Sonata, the Piano Trio or the Piano Quartet
I have put CDs 1 & 2 of the 'Portrait' into a jewel case and left the all-piano volume in the book which is stored elsewhere and therefore will probably never be played again!

[jimsemadeni]

I agree BerlinExpat, sometimes I wonder  whether some people only listen to music to find out what "influences" they can find so thay can then eruditely explain it to those of us who are so obtuse all we can do is listen in order to enjoy (or not) what we hear. It is almost as useful to analyze birdsong (first music?) and be able to say, "Oh, that Liszt, that Jaëll--all they did was copy the yellow-brown red-crested boobyhatch's second mating cry that occurs only in June on the south coast of Lower Slobovia--terribly derivative!" In one single cliché one can thus take care of Messiaen as well, not that we should listen to such modern stuff. AAAArRRRgggHHH.

[Alan Howe]

I mentioned Liszt merely to give some idea of Jaëll's idiom.