Perspectives on the Performance of French Piano Music ed. by Scott McCarrey and Lesley A. Wright (review)

This collection of fascinating essays is an outgrowth of a conference organised by McCarrey and Wright in 2007 in Laie, Hawaii. The book is in four sections: "How Composers Communicate", "Teachers as the Conduit to the Composer's Intent", "Historical Resources", and "Using Analysis for Informed Performances: Pianists' Views", each having two essays. In addition to the text, footnotes on the page provide valuable information. Preceding the essays are lists of figures, tables, and musical examples, of which there are forty-six; a list of the twenty-nine recorded examples, which are available at a provided Web site; notes on abbreviations and the contributors; acknowledgments; and a detailed introduction. The concluding material consists of a selected bibliography and an index.

The editors state that the intent of the book is to build "on the now substantial literature of analysis and performance, as well as on other developments in contemporary musicology, to illustrate how analysis (broadly defined) may inform the performance of this piano repertory" (p. 5). It should be pointed out that this repertory does not include all French piano music but, rather, selected works from the early twentieth century to nearly its end. The content of the material, although restricted to the selected repertory, is almost always applicable to a much wider chronological and national range of musical literature, as well as to repertory for media other than piano and voice.

"Inside Rather Than Under the Composer's Skin" by Roy Howat opens the first section and considers how recordings of keyboard works by Schubert, Bach, Debussy, Mayerl, and Fauré often differ greatly from published editions in which notational errors have been perpetuated. His analysis of three editions of Fauré's Thème et variations is particularly interesting in showing differences in tempo markings, rhythmic fluctuations, and accents. Christopher Dingle's "Messiaen as Pianist: A Romantic in a Modernist World" shows how Messiaen's relatively few commercial recordings as a solo pianist and as an accompanist vary in details of the interpretation, despite his admonition that all the details are to be found in the notation, which is to be followed literally. The most frequently encountered recordings of Messiaen's solo performances are of the organ works, not considered in this chapter; although he recorded his complete organ works, he sanctioned and approved the performances of a number of organists in which interpretive details varied considerably from those of the composer.

The second section begins with "The Genesis of Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux", in which Peter Hill discusses the 1959 memorised premiere played by Yvonne Loriod (1924–2010), and how the composer had conducted his own research on birdsongs for many years, listening to the birds and notating the rhythms and pitches of their songs in a notebook. His observations were especially numerous when he made trips to southern France, the Rhone delta and the Avignon area, both areas teeming with various birds. He said that, in times of stress, hearing the singing of birds was a balm for him. David Korevaar's "A Link to the French Pianistic Tradition: The Teaching of Paul Doguereau" involves a human teacher; Doguereau (1908–2000), a pupil of Fauré's pupil Jean Roger-Ducasse (1873–1954), concertised extensively in France but lived mostly in Boston for over sixty years and was a noted teacher there. He also worked in 1928 with Ravel in New York, when the latter recorded piano rolls. With his French connections, Doguereau was important in conveying the style of French piano music that was still new when he learned it.

"Style, Performance Practice, and Reception in the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue: Placing and Performing César Franck", by Richard Langham Smith, opens the third section and is concerned with the reception history of this piece and chamber works by Franck that include piano. Influences...