Album Review: Anne Gastinel and Claire Desert: Franck, Debussy, Poulenc

Franck, Debussy, Poulenc. Photo / Supplied

For 10 years, Naive Records has taken a very Gallic pride in its maison of "eclectic and non-conformist artists". The label's Facebook page may only list artists like Asian Dub Foundation and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, but Naive also has a prestigious classical division.

This is also where you will find soprano Sandrine Piau and Laurent Korcia, the violinist with the matinee idol good looks.

Anne Gastinel and Claire Desert's disc of French cello sonatas is an anniversary for the cellist, and she explains it with a quirky poem in the booklet. It's 20 years since her first recording, she tells us, two decades of everything from passion and doubts, through flats and sharps galore to impatience and stubbornness.

Best of all, she is thrilled to be able to celebrate with French music, going back to her roots.

Cesar Franck's 1886 Sonata, shamelessly appropriated from the violinist's repertoire, is all lightness and grace.

Familiar themes flit past, subtly signposted. The two women pursue a discreetly passionate dialogue in the Finale's famous theme, with its celebrated Proustian associations.

Debussy's 1915 Sonata is one of his very last works, a commedia dell'arte vision taken into a darker zone.

In its Serenade, Gastinel and Desert take their lead from the directive "ironique" which turns up at one point. Thanks to a superb recording, pizzicato cello bursts from speakers like the funkiest guitar, bent notes and glissandi - not all indicated by the composer - adding to the infectiousness of it all.

How often one returns to Poulenc in moments of cultural despair. Few composers so beautifully balance the high and low, the profound and the chic, the priest/philosopher and the naughty boy.

His 1948 Sonata for Cello and Piano might take the low road, but does so in a first class carriage. This eminently good-natured music is delivered with the intimacy that it demands. Gastinel has the Cavatine sing its heart out through misty piano textures and, when Ballabile almost slips into Die Fledermaus, one suspects the two women get the joke.

Anne Gastinel and Claire Desert: Franck, Debussy, Poulenc
(Naive, through Ode Records)

Stars: 5/5

Verdict: "French cellist returns to her roots to celebrate 20 years of recording."Classic CDs