HONEGGER: Works for Piano – [TrackList Below] Jean-Francois Antonioli, piano/ Ju-Ying Song, piano – Timpani 1C1138 [Distr. by Qualiton], 71:30 *****:
I have a love-hate relationship with Arthur Honegger. He can be obtuse, diffuse, suffocating, and relentlessly technical in his music. He can also show us great lyrical propensity, managing incredibly dense orchestral writing with chamber music delicacy. But overall I fear his sense of color and harmony sometimes gets the better of him, and only a handful of works seem to have remained firmly ensconced on the outskirts of the general repertory. When’s the last time you heard him in concert?
So it was with some feeling of unease that I lurched into this disc of (almost) complete piano music. The composer, a violinist, never seemed to have much time for the piano, and his slim output is all but forgotten these days. What a shame! I was simply startled when I listened to the opening work here, his muscular and wonderfully brilliant Toccata. Could the rest measure up to this complex and intriguing fanfare? Yes, indeed, as the rest of this disc proved as irresistibly compelling as track number one. These are mainly short pieces, not absent a hefty degree of Les Six invention, Debussy-inspired harmonies marinated in a sauce of healthy Bachian counterpoint. Just listen to the Seven Short Pieces for a tour-de-force of rhythmical and melodic variation, captured in the composer’s almost inimitable manner of masking the old in the brand new. Even the final work here, the Partita for Two Pianos—and maybe the thorniest—slaps us in the face with a skin bracer of the most refreshing sort of hurt—smarts a little, but once you get used to it you just have to have that feeling all over again.
Jean-Francois Antonioli, a pianist new to me, plays with authority and indeed some degree of definitiveness. His manner is concise and very clear, while the difficult merging of harmonies from various worlds are perfectly balanced and presented in spectacularly cloudless-sky sound. This is a winner and a huge surprise, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
TrackList:
Toccata; Variations; Seven Short Pieces; Prélude, Arioso, and Fughette; Two Esquisses; Le Cahier romand; Three Pieces; Sarabande; Hommage a Roussel; Berceuse; Petite piece in sol; Scenic Railway; Souvenir de Chopin; Matamore; Partita for two pianos
— Steven Ritter
