GÉRARD PESSON Aggravations et final

Gérard Pesson is a leading French composer of his generation, albeit one whose music bears the mark of a true Germanophile. This is perhaps best heard in the last two works on this disc: Wunderblock (Nebenstück II) “underwrites” the Maestoso from Bruckner’s Sixth Symphony in a manner reminiscent of Hans Zender’s transcriptions. For all the distortions and parasitical incursions from elsewhere, the substructure of the original is audible throughout.

This kind of homage is one aspect of Pesson’s output generally; another is best represented by the playful Cassation for string trio, piano and clarinet, whose evanescent centrepiece is the opening of Tristan as reworked by Wagner himself many years later. Most of the musical argument, however, is embodied in a language clearly derived form Lachenmann’s musique concrète instrumentale: here the musicians (as with the orchestra and chamber ensemble in Aggravations et final and Rescousse, respectively) engage in rhythmical scrapings, upward glissandi and breath-sounds, albeit in a rather different expressive intention from that of the German composer. That intention seems more overtly playful and allusive, and (dare I say it) more “French” in its focus on minute details; what is sometimes missing is the granite-like logic of Lachenmann’s long-term planning. Lest I appear to judge one composer according to the values of another, I should say that Pesson’s own notes are not always as helpful as one might wish. (In them one recognises the Frenchman, just as Lachenmann’s mark him out as German.) What is beyond doubt, and admirably, is the precision of these performances (by no means forgetting the pianist Hermann Kretzschmar in Vexierbilder II), which would do any composer proud. (Fabrice Fitch / Gramophone)

Thomas Demenga / Thomas Larcher / Teodoro Anzellotti CHONGURI

Cellist Thomas Demenga offers up a colorful program of encores in Chonguri. From the pizzicato tour de force of the title piece by Sulkhan Tsintsadze, which imitates the selfsame four-stringed instrument of the composer’s native Georgia, it’s clear we’re in for a lively and eclectic treat. Pianist Thomas Larcher accompanies Demenga for most of the program, which includes nods to the familiar and not so. Of the latter, Catalonian composer Gaspar Cassadó’s Danse du diable vert is among the more spirited pins in the album’s geographic and chronographic spread. Two Chopin nocturnes give us a taste of home, in a manner of speaking, with the c-sharp minor presented to us in one of the more beautiful arrangements one is likely to find (though I’ll always be partial to Bela Banfalvi’s). The balance here is superb. A dash of Webern keeps us on our toes, his three Little Pieces sparkling with a charm that is, I daresay, romantic. Of romance we get plenty more in the three Fauré selections sprinkled throughout, of which Après un rêve is a highlight, and in Liszt’s evocative La lugubre gondola.

Four Bach chorales, in Demenga’s arrangements, for which he is joined by accordionist Teodoro Anzellotti form the album’s roof.Sounding somewhere between an organ and a hurdy-gurdy, the sheer depth of tone from Demenga’s cello in these is inspiring.He also offers two pieces of his own, of which the programmatic New York Honk is a delightful end.

Demenga’s playing is such that one can feel the lineage that binds all of this music together into a masterful patchwork as idiosyncratic as it is (seemingly) inevitable. Such programming epitomizes the ECM New Series spirit insofar as it charts the contemporary while paying due respect to the antique in what amounts to one of Demenga’s finest recordings to date and a label landmark. (ECM Reviews)