Émile Jaques-Dalcroze - Piano Music Vol. 2 (Paolo Munaò)

Information

Composer: Émile Jaques-Dalcroze

• 20 Caprices and Rhythmic Studies
• Cascades
• Esquisse pour un exercice de cordes

Paolo Munaò, piano

Date: 2019

Label: Toccata

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Review

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze was of Swiss birth. A committed and determined composer, he numbered Delibes, Fauré, Bruckner and Fuchs among his teachers. His name will always be entwined with his development of Eurhythmics (movement and music) but our concern here is with his compositions.

As those who have been following his reviving fortunes on this site will know, he has orchestral works (as well as operas and cantatas) including symphonies and concertos to his name. These can be found on Sterling and Guild (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Violin Concertos).

That’s quite apart from his solo piano music represented by at least three Toccata volumes, each played by different pianists. This is the second volume in that sequence. Volume 1 (TOCC0473) mounts works, all written in the 1890s, that are said to be lighter in style and under the influence of Schumann and the Parisian salons. Volume 3 (TOCC0540) comprises piano duets mostly from the 1920s and 1930s.

The present works are heard in their first recordings and are in the dexterous hands of Paolo Munaò. He deals in an eloquently spun and expressed approach to this music. Cascades (1910) is like a radio station signature tune in days of yore. The music is slowly paid out. It’s a sweet piece threaded through with darkness, trilling passion and moments of contentment at rest. Esquisse pour un exercice de cordes (c. 1930) demonstrates gruffness and taciturnity but the clouds finally part for warm and sunny contentment - evidently something of a trademark for Jaques-Dalcroze.

Now to the twenty Caprices and Rhythmic Studies from a couple of years after the end of the Great War. They have depth and variety, as well as a measure of display. Cold academic essays they are not. The composer’s stock in trade is subtle melodious tonality. There is nothing in the way of atonality or neo-classicism; just melodious carefully weighted and calculated lyrics. At times I thought of Godowsky’s Java Suite. No. 3 (‘Agitato’) has sweetness won through agitated turmoil. In No. 4 (‘Poco lento e calmato’) the night sky casts a glistering and glimmering net. The little accelerations of No. 7 (‘Tranquillo’) are not really all that tranquil. No. 9 (‘Moderato con dignità’) trades in melancholy mixed with dignity. No. 11 (‘Moderato’) is a dignified piacevole. ‘Movimento di Valse lente’ spins intricate little waltz episodes. ‘Un poco animato ed intimo’ (15) is a sweetened poem with the complexity of an almost Medtnerian melody. No. 18 (‘Leggiero e con tenerezza’) is lambent blended with a Fauré-like tenderness. The ‘Leggiero e con semplicità’ conveys the freshness of a sunny Hebridean morning; well that’s the way I hear it. The final piece (20) spins a lissom melody among well-constructed convolutions.

The liner-notes are typical of Toccata’s annotations - detailed and accessible. They are by Jacques Tchamkerten and are in English and French.

 

– Rob Barnett

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Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (6 July 1865 – 1 July 1950) was a Swiss composer and influential music educator. Studied under Bruckner, Fuchs and Delibes, he composed string quartets, violin concerti, piano works, and adapted songs for educational use. As a professor at the Geneva Conservatory, he reformed music teaching by integrating eurythmics, a method that uses bodily movement to teach musical rhythm. He applied eurythmics to children in 1905 and promoted it across Europe. He founded the first eurythmics school in Germany in 1910 and a central school in Geneva in 1914, leading it until his death.

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Paolo Munaò (b. 1971) is a Sicilian pianist and pedagogue. Trained under Sergio Fiorentino, he completed advanced studies in Basel and The Hague, and received accolades from institutions such as the Royaumont Foundation and Fondazione Cini. He earned the UNESCO Aschberg-Prize in 2004 and won the Premio delle Arti AFAM "Claudio Abbado" in 2015. His lecture-recitals on figures like Gisella Selden-Goth and Ernő Dohnányi have drawn attention, and his recording of Jaques-Dalcroze's piano music received critical acclaim. Munaò currently teaches in Arezzo and Rovigo, focusing on rare repertoire and pedagogy.

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