Friends and colleagues working side by side in the musical melting pot of fin-de-siecle Paris form the connective tissue in this attractive and smartly curated programme by violist Timothy Ridout and pianist Jonathan Ware.
They open with Léon Honnoré’s engaging Morceau de concert, premiered in 1904 by viola pupils at the Paris Conservatoire where, remarkably, the instrument had only been admitted to the curriculum 10 years earlier. Criticised at the time for requiring the violist to play harmonics – supposedly the exclusive purview of the violin – itemerges here as a zesty showpiece with a melodic heart and more than a hint of Beethoven. It pairs nicely with Henri Büsser’s moody C-sharp minor Appassionato, dispatched with a stormy flourish by Ridout whose playing throughout bristles with imagination.
The red meat is César Franck’s Violin Sonata of 1886 performed in Paul-Louis Neuberth’s 1919 arrangement for viola. Ware is an accomplished and rhythmically acute musician, vital in a work where the piano is often first among equals. Ridout’s glowing tone and consummate technique bring this richly layered music to life, from the wistful passions of the opening Allegretto ben moderato to the lyrical felicities of the finale.
Weightier than the violin yet airier than the cello, the viola proves well suited to Ridout’s skilful transcriptions of Fauré songs that fill out the selection. While Mai and Le Papillon et la Fleur here resemble newly minted salon pieces, reflective works such as Les Berceaux and Après un rêve plumb more considerable emotional depths.
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