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Hi-Fi News and Record Review, Aug 89, Bryce Morrison:
(Reviews first CD)
Satie's insistence that he wrote furniture music suitable only for idle
background chatter receives short shrift from Anne Queffélec. Her
imaginative brio confounds all expectations, ruffles all possible complacency….the
recordings are of demonstration quality.
Fanfare Nov/Dec 89 (90?), William
Zagorski:
(Reviews first CD):
This recording has two things in its favor: first, a selection of pieces
which is variegate enough to hint at the emotional and technical range
of Satie as a composer for the piano, and highly charged performance by
Anne Queffélec that are both fully committee to the letter of the
score and alert to the droll, laconic humor implicit in these aphoristic
pieces. At the moment, there seems to be two philosophies as to how to
perform these problematical scores. Some pianists opt for a classical,
metrically even approach that often serves to vitiate both the atmospheric
quality and the dramatic and humorous possibilities inherent in these scores.
At worst, the performances which result are often precious, reverential,
and denuded of wit and energy <Armengaud
review>. Others overly romanticize these pieces to the point where they
are virtually shapeless and musically incoherent. The problem with Satie
is that he doesn't quite fit into any of the well-established musicological
categories. He is, simply, Satie; and any pianist who presumes to interpret
his music, has to meet him on his own terms. Aldo
Ciccolini did back in the 1960s in his Satie series. Ciccolini sees
each piece as musical essay in its own right. His playing is variously
classically poised, epigrammatic, romantically excessive, delicate, and
tonally variegated, or humorously heavy-handed and rhetorical; all dictated
by the demands of each individual piece. Hi playing is neither classical,
romantic, nor impressionistic. It is simply Satie.
Anne Queffélec, I'm happy to say, approaches these scores with
an attitude similar to Ciccolini's. In a lot of instances, she is not afraid
of taking yet greater chances with the music, and though this approach
occasionally backfires (the Gnossiennes where the metrical distensions
come dangerously close to distorting the music), it ussually pays great
musical dividends These are, in the main, vital, illuminating performances,
and though they do not display quite the classical poise and graciousness
of say, Pascal Rogé in this repertoire, they
are informed by a fine, interesting musical point of view, and, on balance,
provide both an intriguing and satisfying realization of these works.
Queffélec plays up the contrasts. Her tempo relationships tend
to be on the extreme side as is her dynamic range. She is in command of
a rich tonal palette and applies it when others traditionally have opted
for a more secco approach. Her performance of Je te veux
contains just the soupcon of vulgarity necessary to make it sound like
the special piece it is, and her reading of Le Piccadilly (1904)
establishes a link (intentionally or not) to the piano rags of Scott Joplin
(Elite Syncopations was, after all, published in 1902, and it is
not so outlandish to assume that Satie came across this music at one point
or another). Whatever the case, her sense of syncopation is at once vivacious
and infectious. I especially liked her performance of the Embryons desséchés.
After establishing the feathery touch of the initial music of the first
piece, she rams the closing (satirical) chords home with a wild, child-like
abandon, at once seeming to enjoy the joke, and being somewhat surprised
by it. In short, she has more than enough pianistic technique to realize
the music without strain, and the intelligence, wit and humor to reveal
to us that which resides beneath the notes. This is a refreshing recital,
and I hope Anne Queffélec will record a few more installments of
this repertoire in the near future.
The recording is fine, and the accompanying program notes are well-written
and informative.
<Zagursky makes more comparisons in the Legrand
review.>
Interesting comparison of 1st
CD with Rogé from Gramophone May
89.
Recommendation in Gramophone Classical Good
CD Guide
From Penguin 1990 Guide:
(review of first CD):
Anne Queffélec, is exceptionally well served by the engineers,
who produce as good a piano sound as any to have appeared on CD: it is
firm, clean and fresh with a splendid tonal bloom. Their dedication is
not misplaced, for her playing has great tonal subtlety and character.
With the exception of the celebrated Gnossiennes and Gymnopédies,
most of the music dates from the period of the First World War and is dispatched
with great character and style. Nor does she pocess less charm than Pascal
Rogé. A most delightful issue.
Stereo Review, Jan 90, Richard Freed:
Queffélec, whatever her other repertoire specialties, was
surely born to play Satie.
Stereophile Apr 90, Igor Kipnes
(reviews first CD)
French pianist Anne Queffélec has this music so well in hand
that her 75-minute long anthology … of some of Satie's best known works
can with great pleasure be recommended as an excellent disc alternative
<to the more expensive complete sets>.
American Record Guide, Mar/Apr 90,
Kyle Rothwiler:
(reviews first CD)
Satie was a nut and a crackpot; his music and his whole attitude towards
music are irresponsible, flippant, offhand, scatterbrained. Yet there is
obviously something there. One feels like a fool trying to take him seriously,
since he took nothing seriously - especially himself - but it seems
equally foolish to dismiss him as trivial. In his peculiar way Satie was
as much a musical philosopher as Beethoven or Wagner, but his approach
is rooted in the thought of Socrates or Diogenes rather than any bombastic
19th Centruy German.
The Gnossiennes are simple-sounding pieces whose strangely evocative
harmonies strike a Zen-like note of sardonic, fatalistic equanimity. A
Casadesus recording was issued long ago on Columbia, and Queffélec
has some of the same ability to draw out the composer's mixture of honey
and acid. The Gymnopédies are probably Satie's most famous
pieces, having turned up on Muzak - perhaps a fitting posthumous punishment
for the composer who seems to have invented, for a Paris art show, music
deliberately intended as background, not to be listened to conciously.
Anyway, the Gymnopédies are futher exercises in classical
Greek serenity, too calm to be very funny, and played with appropriate
sangfroid by our pianist.
But many of the other works here present Satie in his gadfly, satirical
mode and Queffélec doesn't manage to produce all the chortles and
snorts inherent in them. Satie's moments of intense emotion only come when
he's trying for laughs, and there are few yuks in these frigid readings.
The composer's humor, after all, is not subtly Mozartean but raucous and
absurd, influenced by the vaudeville and music-halls for which he wrote
pieces like waltz Je te veux and the cakewalk Le Piccadilly.
This pianist doesn't always bring out all of Satie's potent cheapness.
Still, these interpretations should be of interest to anyone looking for
a generous dose of piano music by this most un-guru-like of cult figures.
 |
Fanfare Nov/Dec 93, Charles
Timbrell:
(second CD)
Anne Queffélec …. provides a well-chosen program that contrasts
some light and lively pieces with some of the more serious or experimental
ones. There is much to appreciate here, and the music as well as the playing
hold the listener's interest throughout. Good balances, careful phrasing,
and a variety of touches, dynamics, and textures attest to a seasoned approach.
The disc benefits further from the inclusion fo the four-hand pieces (Morceaux
en forme de poire and La belle excentrique) with Catherine Collard.
Gramophone Aug 93, Christopher
Headington:
Volume 1 of Anne Queffélec's Satie series, which has such
familiar pieces as the Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes,
came out four years ago and rightly won praise: in his review at the time,
LS found commitment, sensitivity, finesse and on occasion, a "bubbling
gaiety". The recordings were made in a Newbury, Bershire church with
a fairly resonant acoustic, and I have slight reservations about the piano,
which does not always sound perfectly toned and in tune at the top (say
at the end of track 9), although its sound is generally satisfying.
I also have other reservations that may as well be admitted. One is that
Satie's piano pieces are mostly short (there are 37 tracks on this disc)
and make for bitty listening. Another is that there is a fair amount of
resemblance between them, although Queffélec does her best to avoid
monotony by putting hieratic 'Rosicrucian' pieces between dancelike ones.
Finally, completeness demands that we hear everything, but the quality
of invention is uneven and in all frankness I see little more than uninspired
doodling in, for example, the Descriptions automatiques and the
early pieces called Caresse and Danse de travers, sympathetically
played though they are here. And what on earth was the point of using much
the same material for each of the three sections in the second Piéces
froide?
This said, there is other music of more merit and, as always with Satie,
incidental pleasures at such unexpected things as the quotation from Chabrier's
España in the third of the Croquis et agaceries d'un gros
bonhomme en bois. The pianist plays all this music with affection and
intelligence, blending delicacy and robustness in good proportions, and
her rubato in the several waltzes is idiomatic. Cathérine Collard
is a skillful partner in the two works for piano and duet. Collectors already
possessing Queffélec's earlier Satie disc need not hesitate in acquiring
this one.
From American Record Guide , Nov-Dec
1993, Arved Ashby:
(Reviews Queffélec second CD and CD by Raymond Spasovski)
Spasovski offers something approaching the ideal Satie collection. He doesn't
set a foot wrong anywhere with these straightforward, slightly stiff performances.
But comparing him with Queffelec in the Pieces froides and the Valses
distinguees, you quickly notice the richer nuance (without affectation)
of the French pianist: the careful dynamic terracing, the tasteful rubato,
the slightly drier and more distant sound. Spasovski's ideal program aside,
better introductions can be made through similar recitals from Roge (London),
Ciccolini (the older performances, on an EMI double set), Varsano
and Entremont (Sony), and Queffelec herself (on a Virgin companion
to the new one). Queffelec's new disc compiles some of the lesser-known
pieces in impeccable, charming, and interesting performances. This is the
first truly acceptable CD account of the two four-hand works, and it was
worth the wait: Queffelec and Collard don't batter the higher dynamics
of this music, and they truly play as one. (There are few things in life
more agonizing than hearing a less than top-grade piano duo.) Queffelec
portrays Satie as a poet as well as crackpot in the small two-hand works,
and if she leaves them all sounding rather alike, that's not entirely her
fault. I recommend this recital, especially given Virgin's tasteful recording
job.
Comments from discussion
group:
I recently picked up volume 1 of what I presume is a complete set (or set-to-be) by Anne Queffélec on Virgin. Queffélec is a wonderful artist who I have just recently come to know (she has a great Scarlatti recital recorded in 1970 for Erato, as well). The Ravel disk is excellent, with some wonderfully pungent and spidery playing, and I am keeping my eye out for more of the set.
I second the above recommendation. Queffélec is a wonderful artist.
Her recording of Satie's piano music I also find outstanding.
