Classical CD Reviews
RAVEL: Miroirs; Gaspard de la Nuit; Le Tombeau de Couperin - David Korevaar, piano - MSR
Tasteful Ravel interpretations in tender piano sonics
Published on November 17, 2005
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RAVEL: Miroirs; Gaspard de la Nuit; Le Tombeau de Couperin -
David Korevaar, piano - MSR Classics MS 1125 72:40 (Distrib. Albany)
****:
Recorded in 2000 at the Recital Hall of the Purchase College Conservatory of Music, these seminal piano works of Ravel display David Korevaar’s considerable facility in French neo-classicism, a medium for which he has been honored by the Robert Casadesus Competition of 1989. Like his teacher and mentor, Earl Wild, Mr. Korevaar favors the Baldwin SD-10, a bright instrument whose virtues were first gleaned on disc by David Bar-Illan some years ago. Korevaar is able to manage a sec tonal palette for the neo-classic Le Tombeau de Couperin, whose Forlane evinces that same tinge of melancholy we hear in Mother Goose. Pert music-box sensibility for the last page of the Rigaudon - very effective. The staccatos and passing grace notes in the wistful Menuet are rounded and crisp. The bell-tones of the last page echo just as effectively in La vallee des cloches, Ravel’s homage to the bell-towers of Paris and the villages of the Jura Mountains in Switzerland.
The liquid speed which Korevaar elicits makes the opening movement of Gaspard de la Nuit, Ondine, whose "watery silken robes" melt when the mortal narrator rejects her offer to share her palace. So, too, the kaleidoscopic colors of Noctuelles, their liquid flutter, have sensuous shades of pedal and nuance. Water again dominates the piano’s color elements in Une barque sur l’ocean, where arpeggios and repeated notes mix in a vague habanera. For the aerial effects of Oiseaux tristes, Korevaar evokes a palpable stillness around his pearly, haunted arpeggios and runs. No one has ever surpassed Dinu Lipatti’s steel-wristed rendition of Alborada del gracioso, but Korevaar’s version packs some loving transitions and terraced dynamics. That Korevaar can effect a slick dimuendo while speeding up attests to a master’s hand. My daughter walked into my listening area while Korevaar was providing light, limpid, plastic touches to Ravel’s Toccata from the Couperin Suite. "Gee, Dad, that’s awfully nice music," she proffered. That’s enough of a recommendation, so far as I am concerned. Excellent, tender piano sound, engineered by Gregory K. Squires.
--Gary Lemco
Recorded in 2000 at the Recital Hall of the Purchase College Conservatory of Music, these seminal piano works of Ravel display David Korevaar’s considerable facility in French neo-classicism, a medium for which he has been honored by the Robert Casadesus Competition of 1989. Like his teacher and mentor, Earl Wild, Mr. Korevaar favors the Baldwin SD-10, a bright instrument whose virtues were first gleaned on disc by David Bar-Illan some years ago. Korevaar is able to manage a sec tonal palette for the neo-classic Le Tombeau de Couperin, whose Forlane evinces that same tinge of melancholy we hear in Mother Goose. Pert music-box sensibility for the last page of the Rigaudon - very effective. The staccatos and passing grace notes in the wistful Menuet are rounded and crisp. The bell-tones of the last page echo just as effectively in La vallee des cloches, Ravel’s homage to the bell-towers of Paris and the villages of the Jura Mountains in Switzerland.
The liquid speed which Korevaar elicits makes the opening movement of Gaspard de la Nuit, Ondine, whose "watery silken robes" melt when the mortal narrator rejects her offer to share her palace. So, too, the kaleidoscopic colors of Noctuelles, their liquid flutter, have sensuous shades of pedal and nuance. Water again dominates the piano’s color elements in Une barque sur l’ocean, where arpeggios and repeated notes mix in a vague habanera. For the aerial effects of Oiseaux tristes, Korevaar evokes a palpable stillness around his pearly, haunted arpeggios and runs. No one has ever surpassed Dinu Lipatti’s steel-wristed rendition of Alborada del gracioso, but Korevaar’s version packs some loving transitions and terraced dynamics. That Korevaar can effect a slick dimuendo while speeding up attests to a master’s hand. My daughter walked into my listening area while Korevaar was providing light, limpid, plastic touches to Ravel’s Toccata from the Couperin Suite. "Gee, Dad, that’s awfully nice music," she proffered. That’s enough of a recommendation, so far as I am concerned. Excellent, tender piano sound, engineered by Gregory K. Squires.
--Gary Lemco
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