CD REVIEW -
JEAN-YVES THIBAUDET
CARTE BLANCHE
Decca 485 2081
[79:09]
'
When those nice
people from Decca, with an eye to
business, invited the virtuosic
French-American pianist Jean-Yves
Thibaudet to record his own
personal selection for an album
celebrating his 60th birthday,
they might have shown even more
potential sales optimism, for
when I tried to order a copy on
their Record Store website, I
received the message "sorry
sold out." (Fortunately,
eBay came to the rescue as it
often does if you are looking for
the best price).
The first five
tracks are a specially reworked
suite, built on 97 million
streams of the opening track Dreams,
written by the Italian composer
Dario Marianelli for 'Pride and
Prejudice', the 2005 film with
Keira Knightley and Matthew
Macfadyan in the leading roles,
on which Thibaudet played the
soundtrack accompanied by the
English Chamber Orchestra.
The closing track
is a charming transcription by
Thibaudet of Barber's beautiful Adagio
for Strings. Other tracks of
interest include Elgar's Salut
d'amour, Earl Wild's Embraceable
You (one of his 'Seven
Virtuoso Etudes on Gershwin Songs'),
When You Wish Upon a Star,
Charles Trenet's En avril, à
Paris, Alec Wilder's I'll
Be Around and Morton Gould's
brilliant Boogie Woogie Etude,
which was a "party
piece" for the legendary
Russian pianist Shura Cherkassky
(d.1995), much admired by
Thibaudet and your reviewer, and
who wrote Prélude
Pathétique included here.
Like everything on
the album, the remaining 11
favourite tracks have never been
previously recorded by Thibaudet.
Some evoke his memories while
others have been used as concert
encores, with Couperin (Le
Tic-Tic-Choc), Schubert,
Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, and
Villa-Lobos among the composers.
There is some dazzling finger
work on Pierné's Etude de
concert, and Poulenc's Hôtel
is one of three world-premiere
recordings.
Each piece has a
story behind it. The liner notes
are unusual in that they go
through these in a conversation
between the pianist and the
versatile and well-loved American
soprano Renée Fleming, his
friend since they made a disc
together 20 years ago.*
Thibaudet has
recorded over 50 albums for Decca
since 1989 but this is his first
for six years. It was recorded in
Los Angeles, where he has a home,
as recently as 2-5 May 2021. With
its selection of lighter music
and classical pieces too short to
be heavy, it is an appealing
release of quality and great
value well worth acquiring.
* 'Night Songs'
(467 6972)
© Peter
Burt 2021
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