The catalogue does not lack for complete sets of Ravel's solo piano music, to say nothing of a rich miscellany of individual works recorded by artists of a stature ranging from Lipatti to Argerich, and, on the Russian front, from Gilels to Richter. Yet if any pianist has confirmed what he describes as his early love for Ravel it is thirty-one Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho. Mentored by Krystian Zimerman, praised by Simon Rattle as 'a poet of the piano' he maintains a still potent memory of his triumph in the 2015 Chopin Competition in Warsaw. His voltage(his technique and command of colour are extraordinary) combines with a rare sensitivity to Ravel's elusive idiom. Always you are made aware of a vulnerability close to the surface of the composer's notorious 'froideur,' his aloof and often sarcastic nature. Like the lights on an ever-changing prism Cho, while every inch the virtuoso in, for example, 'Gaspard de la Nuit' is specially illuminating in less hyper-activity, in the calmer waters of the 'Pavane pour une Infante defunte' or in the valedictory close to the 'Valses nobles et sentimentales'(its waltz memory later culminating In the cataclysmic 'La Valse' which I hope Cho will record later) and perhaps most of all in the distant chimes of the 'Sacre Coeur,' in 'Vallee des cloches'(Miroirs). Here, as Cho comments in a modest, almost self- deprecating interview, his concentration is tested to its fullest extent.
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Opening with the 'Serenade grotesque' there is a tart realisation of Spanish overtones(Ravel's mother was a Basque), the snap and sparkle of a work that perhaps understandably was only published after the composer's death. What complimentary warmth and affection In the 'Pavane' where despite the slow tempo there is never a hint of cloying, of an undermining of line and tension. 'Jeux d'eau(dedicated to 'mon chere maitre Gabriel Faure' who, made initially uneasy by his pupil's revolutionary idiom, quickly came to terms with an inimitable play of light and shade.) From Cho you relive Henri de Regnier's prefatory poem depicting a river god laughing at the water that tickles him.
What colour and fragrance Cho find in the 'Menuet' from the 'Sonatine' with its concluding touch of grandeur(for Ravel a theatrical and extravagant curtsy). Then there is 'Miroirs' and all of the flickering life and gyrations of 'Noctuelles' and the exotic mystery of 'Oiseaux triste.' For Ravel this depicted ' birds lost in the torpor of a sombre forest' rather than, as a critical gaffe baldly insisted, 'caged birds.' For that you will turn to Mompou and his 'pairo triste'('Impresiones Intimes') a lament for the suffering of all cruelly confined life. Again, in 'Une barque sur l'ocean,' that incomparable marine scape, there is an inclusive response to a 'cruel sea' undertow, of a welling violence beneath the shimmering, sunlit surface. What dazzle in 'Alborada', in the double note glissando and volleys of repeated notes in particular, followed by a magical memory of the 'Sacre Coeur,' in Paris's distant chimes(did Ravel know the 'Angelus' From Liszt's third book of his Annes de pelerinage?'),
'Gaspard de la Nuit', once feared, is now in the repertoires of so many aspiring young pianists, But the steep challenge remains, For Cortot it was 'among the most extraordinary creations in all piano music,' and from Cho there is all of Ondine's seductive menace(again, that violent undertow) beneath her beguiling entreaty. You are made to feel the chill of 'Le Gibet's macabre and desolating vision as it finally recedes into the distance. In 'Scarbo,' what comes across as mere virtuoso pattern- making from others is turned into a wealth of flashing melodic fragments. You may question Cho's throw away opening(where is the composer's triple instruction, pp, tres fondue and hairpin decrescendo?) but there is a dizzying pin- point response to the composer's ferocity.
Per contra, what delicacy Cho finds in the brief but magical 'Prelude'( composed as a subtly deceptive sight-reading test at the Paris Conservatoire), also in the two playful tributes to Borodin and Gounod. In the concluding 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' you once more hear that wholly Ravelian mix of the sweet and the acidic, notably in the whimsical 'Forlane' and the 'Menuet' and finally, in an all- stops- out yet brilliantly controlled 'Toccata.'
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Even when set beside rather than against so many outstanding Ravelians Cho's labour of love shines out. I would never want to be without the silvery light Casadesus casts across the Prelude from 'Le Tombeau de Couperin', or Jean- Yves Thibaudet astonishing wit and fleetness in 'Scarbo' from 'Gaspard de la Nuit.' Then there is Samson Francois( who remains a god of the piano in his native France) and his wildly inaccurate but mesmeric 1947 'Scarbo. The list goes on. And yet returning to complete sets, Cho's is arguably the most consistently successful of them all, his personal debt to Ravel omni-present. DG's presentation is lavish, their sound as immaculate as it is natural.
Bryce Morrison