The Art of Pierre Fournier (cello) (1959-60)
Program: BACH: Solo Site No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009; KODALY: Unaccompanied Sonata, Op. 8; SCHUMANN: Adagio and Allegro for Cello and Piano, Op. 70; DEBUSSY: Cello Sonata in D Minor; FRANCOEUR: Cello Sonata in E Major
Performers: Pierre Fournier, cello/Guy Bourassa, piano
Studio: VAI DVD 4356
Video: 4:3 Black & White
Audio: PCM Mono
Length: 76 minutes
Rating: ****
The “aristocrat of cellists,” Pierre Fournier (1906-1986) has been captured in two distinct Radio-Canada TV recitals, the solo entries from 7 May 1959, and the collaboration with Guy Bourassa from 22 November 1960. The opening Praeludium from the Bach C Major Suite exhibits Fournier’s huge hands which project a secure, noble tone, the camera often maneuvering a double-exposure to accompany his vibrato. The Allemande dances lightly, basking in the passing grace-notes Fournier passes off without a flicker of exertion. The long line marks the melancholy Sarabande, an extended plaint that demands rapid shifts of register. The Bouree moves rather somberly for a dance movement, but the final Gigue enjoys swaggering and syncopated figures in plastic virile motion.
Janos Starker credits the Zoltan Kodaly Solo Cello Sonata (1915) as among the great vehicles for the instrument after the Bach unaccompanied suites. A flamboyant, often brooding work, the influence of Debussy, Bartok, and Hungarian folk music each makes its presence felt. Chromatic and large in gestures, the music assumes a Magyar sensibility, touched by the colors of the bagpipe. The second movement poses a demanding tessitura, Fournier’s thumb or index finger explosive with resonant pizzicati. Seated in shadow, Fournier himself seems a kind of Delphic Oracle or exotic bird of paradise delivering a rich message from a rarified Slavic world. The Allegro molto vivace plunges us headlong into a stamping dance rife with Hungarian color and technical prowess, an orchestral sound in repeated notes and double stops. Effective and musical vibrant, the piece enjoys a glorious realization.
The broadcast of 1960 features Fournier and pianist Bourassa, opening with Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, often played by a French horn. Mellow, intimate, poised, the Adagio explodes into the Allegro’s wide leaps, all played (a la Karajan) with Fournier’s eyes closed – which does not detract from the idiomatic ardor of the reading. Debussy’s Cello Sonata (1915), for all of its relative brevity, condenses any number of the composer’s stylistic effects, of which having the cello sing like an Iberian troubadour stands out. Bourassa insists on a three-measure phrase, while Fournier plays fragments, agitato, moving to a perfect fifth in high harmonics in the coda. The second movement, connected directed to the third, sets an ironic tone–for a “Serenade”–a snappy anti-lyric. Something haunted and Moorish arises out of the fragments of the Anime movement, the mood mercurial through explosive pizzicati. The thoroughly integrated ensemble has made of Debussy’s music a plaintive habanera-nocturne.
The Francoeur Sonata in E provides a delicate, galant “encore” after the intensities of Debussy. Stately, in dotted rhythms and added trills, the first movement soon passes to a gavotte, equally poised in Fournier’s impeccable style. The Allegro vivo finale has a pre-Haydn flavor, bravura, an energized moto perpetuo. On the last chord, we feel that the two performers have presented a moment of total musical accord.
–Gary Lemco
