Because of his renown as a conductor, Paul Paray’s compositions are all but unknown, a situation that Grotto Productions has been putting right with a series of CDs surveying Paray’s creative output. This two-disc set comprises all of his piano music, along with a Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra that the 20-year-old Paray composed during his student years. The score disappeared after a 1925 performance with pianist José Iturbi, yet Paray managed to reconstruct it note for note in 1937. Its springy orchestration, restless but never cloying harmonies, and compact narrative evoke Fauré, Franck, Dukas, and Ibert without imitating them. The Scherzo section also suggests Saint-Saëns in his darker moments. Although you could imagine a weightier string section soaring in the loud orchestral tuttis, Eduard Perrone takes care to give the brilliant brass and woodwind writing its due, while Flavio Varani’s commanding traversal of the piano part strikes the right balance between scintillation and sensitivity.
While the aforementioned French composers often figure in the solo piano works’ harmonic language, Schumann’s piano music also seems to inform Paray’s penchant for full textures and obsessive rhythms, as in the two Portraits d’Enfants and the last of the four Reflets romantiques, with its driving arpeggiated chords. Most of Paray’s solo efforts consist of short pieces, or groups of short pieces, but the Thème et Variations is a substantial and effective large-scale creation. Certainly Varani’s impassioned virtuosity, big sound, and strong ear for harmonic tension bring Paray’s idiomatic keyboard writing to life. Grotto’s superb, informative booklet notes add value to a release that will attract piano mavens seeking out rare and worthwhile repertoire.
