Sofya Melikyan – Présence lointaine (2023) [FLAC 24bit/48kHz]

Sofya Melikyan – Présence lointaine (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:13:54 minutes | 626 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © RUBICON

Sofya Melikyan’s fascinating album has as its inspiration the great Ricardo Viñes, composer and pianist, champion of young progressive composers (he was Satie’s favourite performer of his music), whose friends included among others Picasso, Gide, Colette, Cocteau.

Cocteau said of him ‘Viñes does not play, he elucidates’. To define Viñes ‘the shining light of contemporary art’, as Adolfo Salazar described him in 1918 as the pianist of the French avant-garde is absolutely correct, albeit quite inadequate at the same time.

Like his compatriots Granados and Malats, he was a student of De Bériot, and taking First Prize in piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1894 followed by his first recital at the Salle Pleyel on 21 February 1895 marked the launch of a career that, over the course of four decades, would prove to be as frenetic as it was thrilling.

Viñes’s insatiable curiosity for so-called ‘modern music’ and his ever restless temperament, always eager to discover neglected repertoire of the present day and to present it to the public as well as music from the past, became apparent very early on, as in his recital of 18 April 1898 at the Salle Érard, at which he gave the premiere of the Menuet antique by one of his first and greatest friends in Paris, Maurice Ravel, or in his historic cycle of four concerts that he would give in the same hall between March and April 1905 devoted to ‘Keyboard music from its origins to the present day’.This unusual Présence lointaine (“Distant Presence”) offered by pianist Sofya Melikyan examines French music of the first half of the 20th century through the figure of Ricardo Viñes, a Spaniard who was a longtime champion of new French music. He inclined somewhat toward music from points south but by no means restricted himself to that; Erik Satie shows up on the program, but it is the southern tinge that is perhaps most interesting on Melikyan’s program. Viñes himself is present as a composer with his Quatre Hommages pour le piano, reminiscences of Ravel, Fauré, Satie, and the writer Léon-Paul Fargue. These offer intriguing insights into how the original audiences of the three composers heard their music. Best of all, perhaps, is the five-movement suite En Languedoc, by the nowadays hardly played Déodat de Séverac. This is something like Albéniz but with material rooted in the southern French region of Languedoc rather than in Spain, with a unique flavor. Mompou is certainly better known, but the five Scènes d’enfants at the end, fascinating miniatures, are not too commonly played. Melikyan manages the deep self-effacement that is necessary to put Mompou across, and her final Jeunes filles au jardin will leave the listener in good spirits going forward. She is effective throughout, and she is nicely supported by the Rubicon Classics engineering team working in the Théâtre la Baleine in southern France. An album that will introduce even confirmed lovers of 20th century French music to something new. – James Manheim

Tracklist:

01. Sofya Melikyan – I. Vers le Mas en Fête (08:18)
02. Sofya Melikyan – II. Sur l’étang, le soir (07:59)
03. Sofya Melikyan – III. À cheval, dans la prairie (04:01)
04. Sofya Melikyan – IV. Coin de cimetière, au printemps (08:02)
05. Sofya Melikyan – V. Le Jour de Foire, au mas (06:23)
06. Sofya Melikyan – I. Menuet spectral (à la mémoire de Maurice Ravel) (03:22)
07. Sofya Melikyan – II. En Verlaine Mineur (à la mémoire de Gabriel Fauré) (03:49)
08. Sofya Melikyan – III. Thrénodie ou Funérailles antiques (à la mémoire de Erik Satie) (04:28)
09. Sofya Melikyan – IV. Crinoline ou La Valse au temps de la Montijo (Hommage à Léon-Paul Fargue) (04:00)
10. Sofya Melikyan – Miroirs, M. 43: II. Oiseaux tristes (03:57)
11. Sofya Melikyan – 3 Nocturnes, Op. 33: III. Nocturne in A Flat (04:56)
12. Sofya Melikyan – I. Sur un vaisseau (01:48)
13. Sofya Melikyan – II. Sur une lanterne (02:01)
14. Sofya Melikyan – III. Sur un casque (00:56)
15. Sofya Melikyan – I. Cris dans la rue (01:38)
16. Sofya Melikyan – II. Jeux sur la Plage I. Jeu (01:44)
17. Sofya Melikyan – III. Jeux sur la Plage II. Jeu (01:15)
18. Sofya Melikyan – IV. Jeux sur la Plage III. Jeu (01:44)
19. Sofya Melikyan – V. Jeunes Filles au Jardin (03:25)

Download from FileJoker: