 Wilhelm Kempff compositeur ? On l’oublie trop, mais durant l’entre deux-guerres Wilhelm Kempff composa un abandon catalogue qui le plaçait au centre de la vie musicale allemande. Sa vocation d’interprète et le succès de sa carrière de pianiste l’auront éloigné progressivement du papier à musique, encore quelques œuvres après la guerre, puis ce chant du cygne solaire que sera en 1958 la « Positano Suite ». Mais dans les années vingt et trente, une foison de partitions, opéras, symphonies (Furtwängler créera la Deuxième à Leipzig en 1924), oratorios, des lieder à tomber (certains ont été gravés), des œuvres pour le piano et petit ensemble de musique de chambre dont le « Quartetto Raro » tire deux opus de la décennie 1910. Le Trio en ut mineur est l’œuvre d’un adolescent de seize ans, brahmsien, mais magnifiquement écrit, avec déjà des recherches harmoniques qui neuf ans plus tard se seront affirmées dans ce magnifique opus de fantaisie qu’est le Quatuor op. 15, pour un alliage peu courant : flûte, violon, violoncelle et piano. Kempff avait une prédilection pour la flûte, elle sera le héros de son deuxième opéra « Die Flöte von Sanssouci » auquel il pensait déjà en composant cette bucolique, écrite lors d’un de ses séjours suédois, partagée entre rêve et giocoso, balançant entres des couleurs très françaises et un discours délicieusement néobaroque. Quelle merveille que ce quatuor-sérénade, écrit d’une plume légère, œuvre enivrante dont il est impossible de quitter l’écoute. Et si un éditeur s’intéressait enfin à la divulgation de Kempff compositeur ? Il n’est que temps… (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé) The pianist Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991) belonged to that tradition of German musicians – notably including conductors such as Furtwangler, Klemperer and Walter – for whom composition hardly less essential a component of their musical personalities than performing, even if it was an activity they largely undertook privately. Working day to day with imperishable masterworks by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, they did not expect to meet such standards, yet their own creative voices required an outlet through more than recreation of others. Left cold by the musical innovations and developments of their own time in the work of Schoenberg and Stravinsky, they wrote in a heightened Romantic idiom, and in genres – especially song and chamber music – which lay separately from their own professional activity as performers. Both chamber works presented here date from Kempff’s youth. The Piano Trio was composed in 1911, when Kempff was 16, and bears a clear Brahmsian influence in thematic conduct and emotional landscape, through the guidance of Kempff’s teacher Robert Kahn, who had himself been a student of Brahms. The Quartet is scored for the more unusual combination of flute, violin, cello and piano. It dates from 1920, and was composed on the island of Capri during a period of recuperation from a serious illness which had laid him low during a concert tour of Sweden. Thus the second movement is based on a Swedish folk theme and the finale ends with a whirlin Tarantella di Taormina, in the tradition exemplified by Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony of German musicians letting Italian sunshine into their work. The Quartet is led by the flautist Ginevra Petrucci, who also contributes a booklet essay on Kempff’s career as a composer to the album. Now based in the US, Petrucci has made several well-received recordings for Brilliant Classics, among them Romanticera concertos by Briccialdi (BC95767) and a ‘winning’ (MusicWeb International) album of chamber music by the Polish-US immigrant Robert Muczynski (BC95433).
|
Catalog 
