SAINT-SAENS: Cello Concerto No. 1; Cello Sonata No. 2; Romance for cello and piano Op. 36; Serenade from Suite for cello and piano Op. 16; Carnival of the Animals – Henri Demarquette, cello/ Boris Berezovsky and Brigitte Engerer, piano/ Ensemble Orchestra de Paris/ Joseph Swensen – Mirare 108, 67 mins. [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] *****(*):
A gaggle of outstanding performances led by the French cellist Henri Demarquette, just turned 40, make this unusual but highly creative tribute to Demarquette’s countryman Camille Saint-Saens a particular pleasure.
There are two real Saint-Saens discoveries: The slow movement of the Sonata is a heartbreaker and the Romance is not just a pleasure but memorable as well. And even if you know inside out the warhorse that the Cello Concerto has unfortunately become, you will never have heard the little interlude in the last movement with the kind of faintly exotic charm that only a French composer with a beard and dreams of North Africa could fully appreciate or conceive.
Wrapping things up, Carnival of the Animals is a refreshing new look at music that never seems to grow old, with Henri Demarquette’s Swan a thing of sultry beauty, and Boris Berezovsky and Brigitte Engerer rushing through their solo riff with a headlong dash to the finish that may catch you by surprise.
Recorded at the Radio France studios in Paris, each of the pieces seem to have their own characteristics, not entirely natural perhaps, but clearly reflecting what the musicians must have been after: Clarity of line and elegance of texture, applied with a kind of liquid color. This is most successful in the Sonata, the Romance and the Serenade, and the Carnival where the colors turn duskier than usual.
Both Gilles Cantargel’s program notes and Demarquette’s brief comments pour out in a kind of pleasing digestible chatter further enhanced by the exquisite typography of the font.
— Laurence Vittes
