Pascal Roge: Poetes du Piano (Onyx)
Rating: ****
Steven Isserlis: reVisions (BIS, both through Ode Records)
Rating: *****
Verdict: A French pianist and an English cellist make charming plays to the gallery.
The title of Pascal Roge's new recital, Poetes du Piano, might sound naff in English but its pianistic poetry is dispensed before what sounds like the best-behaved audience ever, dutifully holding back applause until the end of the concert.
The French pianist has not recorded Chopin before and the Polish composer's music is at the heart of the album, interspersed with Faure, Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc.
Roge's Chopin is happy to relax in the slow lane. The B minor Prelude, stretched to seven minutes, is more Adagio than Lento assai while an A flat Etude that adds a minute or so to the clock might ruffle the glimmer-and-gleam brigade.
The most substantial offering, the F minor Ballade, is positively rhetorical, coming across as something akin to wistful Brahms and, perhaps, none the worse for it. The disc's very French connections are important. A Chopin Etude glides imperceptibly into one by Debussy, just as Chopin's capricious C sharp minor waltz emerges from a Ravel whisper.
A Faure Nocturne is the epitome of understatement with a similarly titled piece by Poulenc coming across as pure tune and tonic. Roge, who has been revisiting Debussy's music after his exemplary Decca recordings of decades ago, still has time for the composer's flaxen-haired girl and dancing fairies.
Debussy also features on Steven Isserlis' new reVisions, a collection of works by Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev and Bloch arranged for cello and orchestra.
The Debussy Suite is a curiosity. Titles such as Reverie and Danse bohemienne inspire quirky arrangements by Sally Beamish that adroitly keep the schmaltz at bay; Isserlis' swooning glissandi in Reverie remind one it was once a popular ballad sung by Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra.
With sympathetic accompaniment from the Tapiola Sinfonietta under Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Isserlis is gloriously full-toned for the stone-melting lyricism of an Andante from a reclaimed Prokofiev Concertino.
And, right at the end of the disc, one is almost caught off-guard by the intense emotions of Ernest Bloch's From Jewish Life, a Shelomo in miniature.
