Legends, Op. 59
From The Bohemian Forest, Op.68
Anna Zassimova
Christophe Sirodeau Piano (4 hands)
Melism MLS-CD-027
Full Price
The Review
This serene and instantly accessible music is beautifully recorded and packaged by the French label, Melism, with the CD itself even having a proper sleeve and a booklet that includes Anna Zassimova’s own oil paintings.
The miniature tone poems, written in the 1880s, of Czech life and landscape are now more familiar in their orchestral versions but the originals for four hands at one piano would have been far better known to their first domestic audiences, in the days when amateur pianists were more accomplished and snapped up new works for home entertainment. They have tunes that are more straightforward than Brahms’ but which are elaborated with enough ingenuity to feel substantial.
Zassimova and Sirodeau mingle together the ten legends (which do not have individual titles) with the six pieces of the Bohemian forest (which do, though they were supplied by Dvorak’s librettist at his request). The result is effectively a seamless flow which feels rebalanced as if it is a new work. This may be something of a liberty but it is also extremely effective on disc. The resulting hour of music is a comfort blanket for a wet afternoon.
The trick for the four hands format is to make the two players indistinguishable. Where a two piano layout would invite stereo separation, the single keyboard is more focused and intimate. Sirodeau and Zassimova achieve remarkable unity, remarkable largely because neither are afraid of applying plenty of rubato that can only be matched by a sympathetic partner feeling, rather than consciously listening, for the shifts in emphasis and pulse. There are moments where the readings become a little too careful but this is far better than the mess would be if they were trying to compete.
It would be hard not to find this compilation attractive; one of those to select when one wants to be soothed, not too severely challenged.
SM