When I initially glanced through the listed titles, I assumed that this recital’s theme had to do with music inspired by elements of nighttime. Well, sort of. The program actually pays homage to pianist Emmanuel Despax’s late poet grandfather and the French belle époque repertoire he loved. Despax goes so far as to include texts of poems relating to or directly connected with these works.
Perhaps Despax’s arrangement of Fauré’s famous song Aprés un rêve is full-bodied to the point of being Brahmsian, yet the pianist gives it his all. Poulenc’s habitually overlooked keyboard masterpiece Les Soirées de Nazelles receives one of its most sharply characterized, zestful, witty, and colorfully nuanced performances on disc.
Although Debussy’s Clair de lune is as alluringly shaded as the best recorded versions, I wish the outer sections matched the central episode’s firmer rhythmic profile. But Despax does well in the Chaminade Nocturne, where his shapely bass lines play an effective foil to the floating right-hand cantabiles.
However, the pianist’s wandering rubatos and lack of surface bravura reduce the scintillating Liszt/Horowitz textures of Danse macabre to dead weight. Despax similarly infuses Gaspard de la nuit’s outer movements with iron-poor blood, drastically undermining the music’s devilish undercurrents. Duparc’s Aux étoiles makes for a rapt, lyrical close. In sum, a noble and superbly engineered tribute that both hits and misses.
