Review by JJ April 2, 2008 (4 of 4 found this review helpful)
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Author of four sonatas for piano, works for four hands, and variations, Carl Maria von Weber was not prolific for the keyboard. But, as Adélaïde de Place rightly states, “These are still works that Liszt admired to the point of having his students practice them “with extreme care.” What’s more, the link between the beginning of Chopin’s Étude op. 10 n°12, called the “Revolutionary”, and the surprising introduction to the allegro of Weber’s first sonata, has often been made. As in Beethoven and Schubert – each in his own way -, Weber, a musician of the classical school, knew how to break out of the narrow framework of the 18th century’s small piano-forte. With an extreme sense of pianistic color, he wrote brilliant music enameled with technical difficulties and virtuoso effects onto which he made these quasi vocal inflections inspired by his genius as a man of the theater.” The program is made up of the Sonata N°2, in A flat major Op. 39, which was completed back in 1816, the Sonata N°3, in D minor Op. 49, which was also terminated in 1816, and the Invitation to the Dance Op. 65 in its original version. Jean-François Heisser, playing an Erard piano built in 1874, here offers us a remarkable interpretation of these undeniably charming scores. Skillfully controlled both in his phrasing and no less so in his virtuosity, his playing breathes a communicative vitality. He manages to bring out the original colors in these works, which the warm sound of the period piano happily reinforces. There is no denying that Jean-François Heisser does not have the poetry of Jean Martin, another great interpreter of these pages, but his performance is marvelously balanced. A fine, dynamic sound recording what’s more, this pure DSD multicanal and stereo SACD is an essential one.
Jean-Jacques Millo Translation Lawrence Schulman
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