Philippe Graffin / Claire Désert SCHUMANN

Fine as Gringolts is, Graffin’s performance of the second sonata accompanied by Claire Desert, finds subtler colours and contrasts in the music while also coming across as more highly charged: very engaging. I also prefer Graffin’s programme. Having given us the one masterpiece among the three sonatas, he champions the arrangement of the Cello Concerto that Schumann made for his violinist friend Joseph Joachim. I approached this with suspicion but was won over.Not only does the music retain its character in the voice of the violin, but the result sounds more convincing than the concerto Schumann wrote expressly for the violin. Excellent accompaniment from the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrucken under Christoph Poppen, and a sweet-tasting filler in the shape of Clara Schumann’s three Romances for violin and piano." (Andrew Clark)

Graffin makes a very persausive case for the Cello Concerto on a violin." "Graffin is effortlessly excellent - producing a warm, well-focused sound - and he is very deftly partnered by the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrucken Kaiserslautern. Christoph Poppen is the sensitive and rhythmically alert conductor. The rest of Graffin’s disc inludes Three Romances by Clara Schumann and a passionate, strongly propelled acount of the Second Violin Sonata in an absorbing partnership with the pianist Claire Desert that makes for impressive results." (Nigel Simeone)

Philippe Graffin / Claire Désert IN THE SHADE OF FORESTS

The haunting cover image of a gypsy child peering from the back of a rickety horse-drawn cart is significant. The stated theme, ‘in the shade of the forests’, doesn’t only symbolise nature, gypsies and various ethnic strains of folk music but the notion of ferrying those influences from one land to another. Ravel and Debussy, for example, were swept off their feet by hearing Hungarian fiddle music.

In the case of George Enescu, the inborn folk seed sprouted virtually from day one: his Impressions d’enfance, written on the eve of the Second World War, explore the twin themes of nature and gypsy music as recalled from early childhood. I loved this recording by Philippe Graffin and Claire Désert, less because of any well meant attempt to approximate a ‘gypsy’ style than the intimacy of the playing. Take the garden stream in the third movement or the caged bird in the fourth, so subtly evoked, like a distant memory shared.

The combination of Graffin’s confidential tone and Désert’s attentive ear makes for what is surely the benchmark recording of Ravel’s early ‘posthumous’ Sonata, music discovered only 30 or so years ago and probably written during the composer’s student years. Although composed before the turn of the last century, unmistakable harmonic hints at Gershwin’s style crop up here and there – paradoxical given Ravel’s later admiration for the king of Tin Pan Alley.

This recording of Ravel’s Tzigane is interesting on two counts: first, Graffin’s unhurried approach ensures that every note is audible; and second, Désert plays the same exotic instrument that was used for the premiere of the version with ‘luthéal’ back in 1924. Here we’re talking a half-size Pleyel as opposed to a full-size grand, the approximate effect a cross between a cimbalom and a fortepiano, with numerous gradations of tone-colouring between. As to Debussy, Graffin and Désert make gentle play with the late Violin Sonata and lavish affection on the transcriptions. The most interesting is Graffin’s re-adaptation of an early, impish Nocturne and Scherzo originally intended for the violin but which hasn’t survived in that form. ‘Minstrels’ is presented in Debussy’s own cheeky arrangement, ‘Il pleure dans mon coeur’, ‘La fille aux cheveux de lin’ and Beau soir in wonderfully supple transcriptions by Debussy’s violinist friend Arthur Hartmann.

A beautiful disc, this, its message one of gentle longing and nostalgia, though the playing is anything but sentimental. Graffin’s annotations are a mine of valuable information, though you’ll need a magnifying glass to read them. (Rob Cowan / Gramophone)

Claire Désert SCHUMANN Fantaisie - Trois Romances - Scènes de la Forêt

Claire Désert seduces her audience with her graceful, profound and humble interpretations. She is in the line-up of important French and international festivals, and she regularly performs with important symphonic orchestras.

At 14, she entered the Paris Conservatoire and graduated with a First Prize in chamber music in Jean Hubeau’s class and a unanimous First Prize in piano in Venislav Yankoff’s class.  She was recognized at an early age and the French government selected her to pursue her studies at the Moscow Tchaïkovski Conservatory, in Evgeni Malinin’s class.

Claire Désert is an exceptional artist and a World-class chamber musician. Her favorite partners are pianist Emmanuel Strosser, cellist Anne Gastinel, violonists Philippe Graffin and Tedi Papavrami, the Quatuor Sine Nomine and the Quintette Moraguès. 

Since her very first disc, Claire Désert has summoned the Schumannian rages in solo or in chamber music.

Here, with three major piano works, she portrays the soul of German Romanticism, from its dark forests to its popular romances.

This is also the whole universe of Schumann, between virtuosity, madness and fervour.

Anne Gastinel / Claire Désert FRANCK - DEBUSSY - POULENC

This is an excellent version of Poulenc’s Cello Sonata. It has a persuasive sense of direction and a well-judged series of tempo decisions. It’s also warmly played, and ensemble between Anne Gastinel and Claire Désert is watertight. If your classic recording of choice is that of Pierre Fournier with Jacques Février—and I suppose that 1971 LP disc looms large in the discography—then you should know that the newcomers have their own views about things, and they ensure a convincing milieu for the work. Maybe the older pair breathed more naturally at certain points in the first movement—one feels their paragraphal phrasing is the more natural—but that doesn’t limit admiration for Gastinel and Désert, who take a more incisive tempo for the slow movement and sustain it well. It’s a passionate point of view, but then it is a passionate movement and one of the most outspoken in all of Poulenc’s music. Witty badinage restores things in the Ballabile third movement, and while Fournier emphasizes some of the more spectral moments in the finale with greater impact and immediacy, the more up-to-date and natural dynamic range of this Naïve recording proves laudable. This then is a compelling and first-class account of the sonata.
The Debussy sonata reprises the virtues of the Poulenc, though it does so in a way that signals the players’ freedom from convention. They don’t play in as arresting a manner as those pioneering French musicians Maurice Maréchal and Robert Casadesus, who, in their 1930 recording, performed with unselfconscious directness. But they do abjure some of the more outré gestures that have accreted to, say, the Sérénade’s pizzicatos, which is well and good in my book. They play with assurance throughout, though my own preferences lie with the classic older statement and also with the more phrasally suggestive playing of Tortelier and Gerald Moore in their 1948 disc, now in a huge Paul Tortelier EMI retrospective box.
The last work is the transcription of the Franck Violin Sonata made by Jules Delsart, with the approval of the composer, in 1888. This has been an increasingly popular option for cellists, and Gastinel and Désert play with a canny appreciation of when to press on and when to fine-down tone. Gastinel’s vibrato speed is well judged, and the pianist, who shoulders most of the truly taxing demands, acquits herself estimably.
This fine recital has been warmly recorded, is well balanced and reflects well on all concerned. (Jonathan Woolf)

Anne Gastinel / Claire Désert SCHUBERT Arpeggione

Cellists love Schubert for the wonderful things he gives them in the String Quintet, but he wrote nothing for solo cello. Anne Gastinel gives a charming apologia for this programme of transcriptions, in the form of a letter to Schubert, but the best justification lies in the appropriateness of the material and the standard of performance. The Arpeggione Sonata, indeed, sounds better on the cello than on any other conventional instrument, and the fact that some passages lie uncomfortably high is no problem for someone with Gastinel's technique. This is a suave performance; there's a wide range of expression and the more lively sections are played brilliantly, with plenty of spirit. At the other end of the scale, Gastinel and Desert create a beautiful atmosphere, sad yet tranquil, in those places (the end of the first movement, the latter stages of the Adagio) where Schubert allows the energy of his musical discourse to drain away.
The little D major Violin Sonata transcribes well, apart from a few places where a low cello accompaniment muddies the harmonic waters. The outer movements aren't taken too fast, so that the cantabile themes have space to breathe. But I wish Gastinel had played certain slurred passages, like the counterpoint in the Andante's final section, more smoothly.
The song transcriptions are well chosen and faithful (the original keys are retained), and Gastinel compensates for the absence of words with inspired changes of tone colour. For example, the heartbroken Miller's lament has a stark sound, without vibrato, to contrast with the softer tone of the consoling brook. Claire Desert reveals herself as a most accomplished, lively accompanist. (Duncan Druce, Gramophone 12/2005)