Émile Jaques-Dalcroze - Works for Cello & Piano (Pi-Chin Chien; Bernhard Parz)

Information

Composer: Émile Jaques-Dalcroze

• 3 Morceaux, Op. 48
• Rythmes délaissés
• Suite for Cello & Piano, Op. 9
• 3 Esquisses for Cello & Piano

Pi-Chin Chien, cello

Bernhard Parz, piano

Date: 2022

Label: TYXArt

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Review

There’s a place for amiable music (Bridge, Tchaikovsky, Popper, Saint-Saëns, Fauré) and here it is the cello that is favoured. This goes to show that, other things being equal, not every disc has to shoulder the heroic and the grand. We know Swiss composer and Eurhythmics advocate, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze for his orchestral music. Sterling did a great deal for this composer, as did Guild and Toccata. The present disc dallies with the less dizzy musical foothills but also engages with flashes of animation.

There’s no heaven-clawing sonata here - such were seemingly not a concern of Jaques-Dalcroze. Instead, we can revel in four multi-movement collections. Each possesses an easy, civilised, silver-spun line and here has playing that is at one with that line. For the Morceaux there’s a nice equipoise of melody and determination especially in Lied Romantique (1) which ends with a flurry of display and yearning. The Serenade is a skilled oblation with a dash of Spanishry about it. The Bagatelle stiffens the sinews and is well characterised and caringly defined. The four Rythmes delaissés encompass a rather d’Indy-like Chantant et bien rhythme (a gentle village dance with bit of romance), a Commodément which is animated and engaging, a sauntering Allegretto Comodo with the dotted equivalent of glottal stops before a Calment animé radiating character and fun.

The Suite has an Allegro ma non troppo which oozes charm, an Andantino espressivo in which the composer pushes the cellist, a little dreamer of an Allegretto con moto played as if through half-hooded eyes and a barnstormer of a Vivace. We end, all too soon, with Trois esquisses. The Allegretto vivace is very brief. There’s a sweet, rounded and nicely balanced Andante cantabile before a playfully “rum-ti-tum” Allegretto scherzando which, surprisingly, ends with a peaceful, quiet note.

Cellist Pi-Chin Chien is at the centre of the audio image and at all times, with the active and decorous bright-work of Bernhard Parz, makes the most of what the composer has to offer.

The disc booklet is most handsomely designed and very well documented by Walter Labhart in English¸ French and German. That said, close on 42 minutes playing time is a regret and an expensive one.

— 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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Pi-Chin Chien (born 1964 in Yilan) is a Taiwanese-Swiss cellist. She studied in Zurich, Lucerne and Prague, receiving a soloist diploma with distinction, and trained with renowned cellists like Rostropovich and Yo-Yo Ma. Chien has played at major venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Berlin Philharmonic, and recorded with orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic. Her 2015 album Taiwan Rhapsody gained acclaim. She regularly premieres new works, some written for her, and directs the "Swiss Music Night" in Taiwan and the "Confluence" Festival in Zurich.

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Bernhard Parz (born 1979) is an Austrian pianist. He studied at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts and the Vienna Conservatory, winning major competitions including first prize at the International Johannes Brahms Competition. Appointed in 2009 as the youngest piano professor at the Vienna Conservatory, he has since built an international career, performing across Europe, the Far East and South America. Renowned for his mastery of the Viennese sound, Parz is a designated Bösendorfer Artist. He regularly gives master classes in Japan and Zurich; many of his students have won international awards.

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