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Fanfare

Non-cellists of a certain age will almost certainly be familiar with Schumann’s Fünf Stucke im Volkston via the Rostropovich/Britten Decca recording (that radiant, open-hearted performance is still available on Decca Legends). And, while Slava and Ben’s account is placed with stimulating bedfellows (the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata and the Debussy Cello Sonata), cellist Marie Ythier on Metier goes one step further, examining the relationship between Schumann and his influence on Tristan Murail.

The sheer character of Ythier and Vermeulin in the first piece of Schumann’s op. 102 (marked Mit Humor) is enough to draw the listener in. Ythier and Vermeulin capture the multi-faceted nature of this piece perfectly, offering chamber music of the first order. The recording (by Salle Vincent Meter, the Paris Conservatoire, and producer Olivier Rosset, with Murail himself overseeing his own pieces) is well judged, dry enough to allow every strand of detail its due, but with just enough space and warmth to provide a comfortable listening experience.

In his fascinating introductory note, Tristan Murail describes an encounter with Schumann’s Cello Concerto in which, as part of his training with Jeanne Loriod and Maurice Martenot, Martenot (himself a cellist) had his students work with the cello repertoire via the Ondes. The idea of a performance of the Schumann Cello Concerto by Ondes and piano is intriguing indeed; but the link was made between Murail and Schumann. Later, the present cellist, Marie Ythier performed Murail’s Attracteurs étranges in 2017 during a festival, and mentioned a Schumann-Murail program. This is the result, and in the disc listening order, we do indeed move straight from op. 102 to Attracteurs étranges (1992), a jarring transition indeed. Murail’s stark surface for solo cello is a reflection of aspects of Chaos Theory, and plays with the expected and the unexpected (much as Schumann, in his way, also does). No mathematics was used to generate the piece, merely abstract notions and poetic analogy. Interestingly, and talking of math, the premiere of Attracteurs étranges took place at a concert celebrating Xenakis’s 70th birthday, and the extreme technical challenges of that composer’s music seem to inform Murail’s response. Ythier’s technique is magnificent.

The much more recent Une lettre de Vincent (2018) for flute and cello is part of a collection of works under the umbrella title Portulan, although it is treated as an independent piece in Murail’s own work list. Enigmatic, fragrant, elusive, it takes its inspiration firstly from a four-note motif that comes from the phrase “Mon cher Theo,” words that Vincent van Gogh used to open his letters to his brother, and secondly from the idea of a “portulan,” an old maritime atlas without compass points, whereon the terrain was mapped via landmarks. Murail accordingly creates musical land-marks in gestures; furthermore, he uses a hocketing technique between the two instruments to mimic Van Gogh’s accumulations of small dabs of paint. There is a real feeling of tendresse about this most intimate of performances; Samuel Bricault’s flute is astonishingly expressive. The sonic intersection between flute and cello harmonic is glisteningly realized here, a moment of purest sunlight.

It is autumnal sunshine, perhaps, that enters our consciousness when Schumann’s op. 73 Fantasiestücke creeps in. The performance of the fourth movement (Zart und mit Ausdruck) is one of the finest on disc, unutterably poignant and yet with enormous attention to detail. Although Schumann indicated that his op. 73 was for clarinet and piano, he opened out the envelope by inviting cellists and viola players to join the party, and indeed one immediately thinks of Pierre Fournier’s classic account with Babeth Leonet. Nearer to us in time, Gautier Capuyon and Martha Argerich loom large, but there is something about Ythier and Vermeulin’s sense of lightness in these three pieces that is both intriguing and compelling, not to mention unique. Thus, they emphasize the dual, fluid nature of the final Rasch und mit Feuer without overemphasizing the fire part.

Written for solo cello, C’est un jardin secret, ma soeur, ma fiancée, une fontaine close, une source scellée … is the earliest of Murail’s works here (1976). An examination of the expressive potential of the cello’s various performance techniques (sul ponticello, natural harmonics, and so on), it transcends the mundane through a palpable sense of exploration, no doubt lent to it by the present cellist. The piece was originally written for solo viola, and the unquenchable Garth Knox offers a splendid performance on his disc Spectral Viola (released on Edition Zeitklang).

Then, a mesmerizing sonority (flute bisbigliando and harmonic trill for cello) appears, and we are launched into Murail’s take on Kinderszenen. It is a bit like taking the Kinderszenen we know, putting it in a kaleidoscope, and turning it around. The warmth of an alto flute helps take the music toward nostalgic terrain, while a full utilization of the cello’s lower register in “Wichtige Begebenheit” gives it a wonderfully earthy aspect. The most famous movement, “Träumerei”, is, as one might expect, a cello solo, or at least initially. When the piano reclaims its space, it is garlanded by the merest tissue from its colleagues, a veil between our world and that of our childhoods, perhaps. The most delicious cello “slaps,” for wont of a better word, give “Ritter von Steckenpferd” a modem, playful aspect, while “Fast zu Ernst” takes on a dream-like, perhaps even astral, quality. The opening of the final movement, “Der Dichter spricht,” takes us back to this highly enigmatic start of the piece, with flute and cello in tandem. The later beautiful dialog between flute and cello offers deliciously simple counterpoint before (now moving in parallel) the two instruments are garlanded by high piano. The ink of Murail’s “re-reading” of Kinderszenen realization is basically still wet, in that it is a 2019 piece. Surely, this will not be the only recording for long.

Without doubt, this is on my Wants List of 2019. Fresh, imaginative programming, superb performances, and stimulating documentation all contribute to an unmissable experience.