Souvenir de Chopin (Honegger) - from CDA67803 - Hyperion Records

Reviews

‘A fascinating collection, brilliantly dispatched by Plowright’ (The Mail on Sunday)

‘All of these multifaceted offerings (jewels as well as gemstones) show Jonathan Plowright as beguiling in intimacy … as he is magisterial in virtuosity. Such quality will leave lesser pianists bemused, as as on Plowright's earlier superb Hyperion recordings he has been immaculately recorded’ (Gramophone)

‘Mompou's 11th variation is the sublimest track on the disc. It is in places like these that Plowright shows his real qualities as a virtuoso, especially his clarity of texture and instinct for phrasing. Warmly recommended’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Jonathan Plowright provides a fascinating conspectus of how Chopin’s example has sparked ideas in others … this disc is a delight’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Fascinating, seldom-trodden paths of the vast 19th- and 20th-century piano literature that rarely find their way onto disc … Plowright's dazzling playing can't be faulted’ (The Sunday Times)

‘Jonathan Plowright has assembled a towering monument to the Chopin style’ (Audiophile Audition, USA)

The Swiss composer Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) wrote many distinguished film scores, for Abel Gance’s Napoléon (1924) and Anthony Asquith’s Pygmalion (1938) among others—he even made a brief appearance as a composer in a 1946 film called Un Revenant. His Souvenir de Chopin (in E flat major/minor) is one of three pieces extracted from the music he wrote for the 1946 film Un ami viendra ce soir (‘A friend will come tonight’), one of the first French post-war films to deal with life during the conflict, a Resistance story set in an insane asylum. The last of Honegger’s works for the piano, like his earlier Hommage à Ravel and Hommage à Albert Roussel, it captures by means of charming pastiche something of Chopin’s compositional personality.

Le Suisse Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) signa maintes musiques distinguées pour Napoléon d’Abel Gance (1924) et pour Pygmalion d’Anthony Asquith (1938), entre autres—il fit même, comme compositeur, une brève apparition dans Un revenant (1946). Son Souvenir de Chopin (en mi bémol majeur / mineur) est l’une des trois pièces extraites de la musique qu’il rédigea pour Un ami viendra ce soir (1946), l’un des premiers films français de l’après-guerre à traiter de la vie pendant le conflit—une histoire de Résistance sur fond d’asile d’aliénés. Cette partition, la dernière du piano d’Honegger, capture, comme Hommage à Ravel et Hommage à Albert Roussel l’avaient fait avant elle, un peu de la personnalité du compositeur au moyen d’un pastiche charmant.

Der Schweizer Komponist Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) schrieb viele ausgezeichnete Filmmusiken, z.B. für Abel Gances Napoléon (1924) und Anthony Asquiths Pygmalion (1938), um nur einige zu nennen. 1946 hatte er sogar einen kurzen Auftritt als Komponist in einem Film mit dem Titel Un Revenant. Sein Souvenir de Chopin (in Es-Dur/Moll) ist eines von drei Stücken aus der Musik, die er 1946 für den Film Un ami viendra ce soir geschrieben hat. Dies ist einer der ersten Nachkriegsfilme, die sich mit dem Leben während des Krieges befassen, eine Geschichte aus der Resistance, die in einem Irrenhaus spielt. Es ist das letzte Klavierwerk Honeggers und fängt wie bei seinen früheren Kompositionen Hommage à Ravel und Hommage à Albert Roussel durch ein reizendes Pastiche etwas von der kompositorischen Eigenheit Chopins ein.

Recording details: August 2009
Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk, United Kingdom
Produced by Jeremy Hayes
Engineered by Ben Connellan
Release date: February 2010
Total duration: 2 minutes 1 seconds

Cover artwork: Adaptation of the cover illustration for Franz Bendel's Hommage à Chopin, Trautwein, Berlin (1867).

Souvenir de Chopin

Jonathan Plowright (piano)

Reviews

Introduction