(A 1903 photograph of French composer Gabriel Fauré.)
By Montague Gammon III
A double-dozen dose of seldom heard music comes to the Larchmont United Methodist Church April 26 to honor French composer Gabriel Fauré with the closing concert of the Norfolk Chamber Consort’s 55th season.
The occasion is Fauré’s 180th Birthday on May 12.
The Invencia Piano Duo is the heart of the Consort. That duo is otherwise knows as husband and wife, Andrei Kasparov and Okasana Lutsyshyn, Consort Artistic Co-Directors; joined this year and in this performance, by Associate Artistic Director and soprano Bianca Hall, or to be precise, Dr. Bianca Hall, D.M.A.
Kasparov kicks off the program soloing with Fauré’s Pavane; the word means a stately, processional dance. This piece is relatively familiar in orchestral form but, Kasparov notes, “We will present it in it’s original piano version…[this is] an opportunity to hear it in its original form.”
Lutyshyn, like her husband an ODU Diehn School of Music faculty member, joins forces with soprano Kathryn Kelly for three songs. Nadia Boulanger’s 1910 Heures ternes (“Dull Hours” is anything but dull musically) is a piece of delicate dolor. Two by Fauré, who taught Boulanger composition: Apres un rêve (1877) and Lydia (c. 1870), make great vehicles to showcase Kelly’s soprano voice. Apres un rêve relates a dream about a beloved and Lydia is a love song to end them all.
Eyebrows may rise on the mention of Fauré teaching Boulanger, who became the acknowledged greatest composition/music teacher of the 20th Century, perhaps of all time, numbering among her more than 600 students pupils as brilliant as Aaron Copland (her first student), as wide ranging as Bacharach and Quincy Jones, and our own Adolphus Hailstork.
Of Boulanger, Kasparov said, “She’s a good composer; the list of her pieces is quite long. This was a discovery for me that I hope to pass on to other people. We all grow together with our listeners.”
Kasparov next accompanies fellow Diehn School faculty member Bianca Hall on another soprano’s showcase, a trio of pieces by Reynaldo Hahn. The first is a bright, even cheerful memory of a past love titled Quand je fus pris au pavillon (1899). Les cygnes (The Swans, 1893–1894) and Les fontaines (The Fountains, 1910) are likewise romantic, but addressed to current lovers. (Hahn did not write the lyrics, but when setting them to music he was perhaps remembering his liaison with Marcel Proust.)
Hall, Kasparov, and Kelly team up for Fauré’s 2 Duets, Op. 10 (1879) Puisqu’ici-bas (“As each soul here”) and Tarantelle (“The Tarantella”). Here Kelly sings mezzo soprano to Hall’s higher soprano. Kasparov explained, “She has a very wide range…She’s very gifted.” Really, there’s nothing quite like the sound of a mezzo and a high soprano duetting!
Wrapping up part one of the concert, “Dolly Suite,” carries its most interesting history, and its most interesting Fauré compositions. Fauré wrote these six short pieces for a little girl named Régina-Hélène Bardac, nicknamed “Dolly,” the daughter of his (married) mistress, Emma Bardac. (Fauré’s own marriage was an arranged one, and as successful as one would expect when a genius picked his designated wife’s name out of a hat.) The Invencia Duo plays the suite as a four hand piano piece.
Berceuse (Lullaby), written for Dolly’s first birthday, lives up to its name with heart tugging beauty. Fans of classic American musical theater will recognize it as the basis for the lovely “More I cannot wish you” from “Guys and Dolls.”
The lively Mi-a-ou, which suggests something like a child skipping rope, commemorates Dolly’s second birthday, her learning to speak, and, in abbreviated form, refers to her older brother Raoul, whose name, Monsieur Raoul, she pronounced Messieu Aoul.
With hints of Berceuse, Le Jardin de Dolly looks at the Bardac family garden through the eyes of 2 ½ year old Dolly on New Years, 1895.
The energetic, canine quasi-waltz, Kitty-valse, is actually about the Bardac dog, Ketty, and was written for Dolly’s fourth birthday.
Tendresse and Le Pas espagnol (Spanish Dance) were added in 1896 when Fauré compiled the suite. The former is a musical exploration of the concept of tenderness; the second prompted by a bronze equestrian statute that little Dolly loved.
Emma Bardac eventually married Claude Debussy, with whom she had a musically talented daughter who died at 13. The adult Dolly married, had two kids, and lived until 1985, dying at the age of 92, perhaps the last living link to great musicians of long gone times.
After intermission, Lutsyshyn and flutist Wayla Chambo (WHRO announcer and Program Director and another D.M.A.) team up for Fauré’s Fantaisie, Op. 79 (1898), as brilliant and captivating a five minute showcase for the flute as can be imagined, as one would expect of a work composed to show off a flute player’s virtuosity in competition.
Sicilienne, Op. 78 (1898), Fauré, arr. Jacques Larocque (b. 1945), brings violinist Gretchen Loyola onstage with Lutsyshyn, and here’s a badly kept but rarely mentioned secret: It sounds, almost note for note, like some of John Williams’s Harry Potter music. Kasparov terms Loyola “a wonderful musician, wonderful person, and a real joy to work with.”
The performances wrap up with a compendium of seven pieces by a like number of important French composers, titled “Hommage à Fauré: Seven Pieces on the Name of Fauré” (1922), from which the concert takes its name. Maurice Ravel (the “Bolero” guy), George Enescu, Louis Aubert, Florent Schmitt, Charles Koechlin, Paul Ladmirault, and Jean Roger-Ducasse found musical equivalents for the letters of Fauré’s name, and created seven very different works that all reference Fauré. Loyola plays in the Ravel, otherwise it’s pianos all the way down.
Kasprov notes, “It’s a very rare opportunity to hear this piece live. I’m sure you could travel the world and [not] be able to hear [it] live.” (He and Lutsyshyn recorded it on the first CD of their extensive discography.)
He also promises “a very full blooded, full portrait of Fauré, not only as a composer but as a very influential music personality.”
Lutsyshyn concluded the interview by addressing potential audience members: “Come and learn something new, hear something that you are not going to hear in regular places or even on radio.”
WANT TO GO?
Hommage à Fauré: Happy 180th!
Presented by Norfolk Chamber Consort
Sat, April 26
Doors open at 3:30 pm
Pre-concert talk 3:45 pm
Concert 4:00 pm
Larchmont United Methodist Church
1101 Jamestown Crescent, Norfolk
(757) 387-0010
