Steven Osborne - Maurice Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Music (2011) 2CDs

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Steven Osborne - Maurice Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Music (2011) 2CDs

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Steven Osborne - Maurice Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Music (2011) 2CDs

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A complete survey of Ravel’s piano music is an especially challenging prospect for any pianist. It is not merely that this sublime music frequently demands exceptional, post-Lisztian virtuosity. Beyond such dexterity is the fact that, as Steven Osborne observes in this recording’s booklet, the composer’s fear of repeating himself ensure that the lessons from one work can rarely be transferred to the next. This is not merely the aesthetic change from the nightmarish imagery of Gaspard de la nuit to the elegant neo-classicism of Le tombeau de Couperin. Ravel essentially re-imagined how to write for the piano with each significant work.

Osborne is more than up to the task. The contrasting fireworks of the ‘Toccata’ from Le tombeau and ‘Alborada del gracioso’ (Miroirs) are despatched with relish, the piano exploding with power in the latter after a disarmingly impish opening. The Sonatine has a refined insouciance, while the love bestowed upon each note is clear. Then there are the numerous moments of sustained control, such as the shimmering opening pages of Gaspard. Sometimes changes of spirit occur effortlessly within a piece. Having been a model of clarity in the ‘Prelude’ from Le tombeau, Osborne treats the codetta not as a brisk flourish, but as if this particular vision of the 18th century is dissolving beneath his fingers.

Equally impressive, though more subtle, is the simple charm brought to the shorter works, such as Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn and the affectionate homage of A la manière de Chabrier – these are no mere fillers. Throughout, Osborne repeatedly demonstrates not merely that these performances stand with the best, but also that comparisons are superfluous in the face of such a compelling vision.

In isolation, some moments may be captured more convincingly elsewhere. The surging high trills that periodically ride the crest of the waves in ‘Une barque sur l’ocean’ do not quite set the hairs tingling. Nonetheless, such minor caveats are soon swept away, in this case by the breathtaking mist of spray, Osborne seemingly brushing the strings directly with his fingers. Moreover, this is a genuine, coherent and intelligently arranged survey, each disc concluding with Ravel in waltzing mood. The piano arrangement of La valse is a welcome bonus, while the Valse nobles et sentimentales find an especially strong advocate in Osborne. His sustaining of the ‘Epilogue’ is magical, as if not wishing to relinquish the spell of this recital. It is over all too soon.

Review by Christopher Dingle, BBC Music Magazine

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Steven Osborne - Maurice Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Music (2011) 2CDs

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Offering some acute and warm-hearted after-thoughts, Steven Osborne complements Roger Nichols’s accompanying essay, confessing to a lifelong love of Ravel. And clearly it was time to extend his single Ravel CD (Musical Heritage) to celebrate his triumph in the Naumburg Competition and give us a most stylish and distinguished completion. A pianist inclined to leave well alone, he would surely have delighted a composer notoriously on the qui vive for all possible exaggeration or lapses of taste. As he so eloquently puts it, in “Ondine” from Gaspard it is as if “the laws of physics are being subtly contravened – the piano should not be able to hang in the air like this”.

And so it is in his performance, which is technically immaculate (the opening “‘shimmer of harmony” a far cry from Lazar Berman’s confused shake on his Brilliant Classics recording) and gently seductive before turning on a more sinister pressure. “Le gibet” is wonderfully desolate and static (though with individual touches of vehemence and assertion) and in “Scarbo” there is a reminder that beneath all that skittering madness lies music in rapid three-time; truly Ravel’s “Mephisto Waltz”. “Alborada” from Miroirs is another striking success, where a trickster’s ribaldry and high jinks explode into violence, and in La valse (suitably arranged and “orchestrated”), Osborne spins his dancers towards a visceral and devastating oblivion.

An occasional diffidence elsewhere (the Forlane from “Le tombeau de Couperin” could surely be more piquant and characterful) and a laissez-faire approach to several of the shorter works (try Pascal Rogé – Decca, 10/94 – for a more lilting and affectionate A la maniere de Borodine) is countered by a vivacious and refined view of Valses nobles et sentimentales, including a third waltz as léger as you could wish. My top recommendation for Ravel’s piano music remains Thibaudet (see my Gramophone Collection, 8/08) but this beautifully recorded and presented issue rides high in a highly competitive market.

Review by Bryce Morrison, Gramophone

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Steven Osborne - Maurice Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Music (2011) 2CDs

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Steven Osborne - Maurice Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Music (2011) 2CDs

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Steven Osborne - Maurice Ravel: The Complete Solo Piano Music (2011) 2CDs

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