Pizzicato

This album by pianist Isabelle O’Connell explores the musical connections of Jean Cocteau (1889–1963).
In addition to music by Stravinsky, Tailleferre, Poulenc, Satie, Auric, Durey, Honegger, and Milhaud, there is a new work entitled Cocteau by Rhona Clarke. The new work, which lasts 21 minutes, consists of six short pieces inspired by the texts and drawings of Jean Cocteau.

But « Cocteau’s general aesthetic and personality, his idiosyncrasy, his modernism, his sense of freedom, and his mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous » also inspired the composer. The music is both melancholic and pulsatingly rhythmic.

O’Connell has the right touch for the music of earlier composers as well as that of Rhona Clarke. She plays with great verve, an excellent sense of rhythm, but also with a sense of color, accent, and poetry. The interpretations are characterized by the necessary subtlety and humor that breathes life into many of these compositions. An all-around delightful album!

—Remy Franck