At 77, the great Brazilian pianist Magda Tagliaferro was on fantastic form in this previously unreleased 1970 recital, recorded at the Cecilia Meirelles Hall in Rio de Janeiro. She virtually orchestrates the two opening Chabrier works (Scherzo-Valse and Idylle), projecting the catchy melodies with uplifting force and tangy accents. The Sévérac and Hahn miniatures also benefit from the pianist’s luscious chord voicings and bang-on characterizations. Tagliaferro may not play Saint-Saëns’ Valse Etude as fast on her 1953 Philips recording, but the left-hand runs are more tellingly shaped here, and her staccato alternating chords are as playful and supple as ever. The pianist also digs deeper into the textural coves and harmonic eddies of Debussy’s Pour le Piano than she did on her early 1930s shellac versions. She floats the Prelude’s melody over a murmuring yet rock-solid accompaniment, intones the Sarabande with gorgeous, bottom-to-top diction, and brings out all of the Toccata’s airy wit.
I like Tagliaferro’s brisk, no-nonsense way with the often sentimentalized Arabesque No. 1 and her crisp handling of Arabesque No. 2’s salon-like patterns. The Debussy group closes with a fiery yet never unpoetic L’Isle Joyeuse, one of the pianist’s specialties. Her seasoned, insightful traversals of Fauré’s Fourth and Sixth Nocturnes elucidate the music’s subtle harmonic tensions, and are technically superior to the studio versions she recorded a decade later (on an early digital CBS Fauré LP with pianist Daniel Varsano: never on CD, I believe). In short, this is a hearty addition to this wonderful pianist’s all-too-slender commercial discography, and the sound is excellent. Highly recommended.
