Rare and moving Godowski and Szymanowski by Dmitri Makhtin and Mūza Rubackyté
It is in the company of violinist Dmitri Makhtin that pianist Mūza Rubackyté revives the two composers of her previous disc, Godowski and Szymanowski.
Somewhere between Vienna, Prague, Vilnius and Warsaw, but always in a hushed salon, the fragrance of these pages - twelve Impressions for violin and piano - by Godowski takes us by the throat. It is a heady, joyous, but bittersweet violin and piano. The waltzes, these Alt Wien, hesitate between the lyricism of a Korngold and the outdated romanticism and pastiche of a Kreisler. Godowski was a maker of emotions, a magician even in his opulence opulence when he placed a barnum on Chopin's Etudes that had not asked for anything. which he had not asked for anything... Godowski also knew how to move in the curve of a phrase, in the steps of dances sketched out. Dmitri Makhtin thus plays a series of characters, a luxurious beggar, an idle puppet, a prince soloist for an evening... In the background, Mūza Rubackyté creates the setting, sometimes dramatic like this Avowal (confession) with its harsh harmonies. She "plays" the hall, the audience singing behind two Walz Poems, revives the discourse, pretends to be a Faurean Penelope in the Larghetto lamentoso, perhaps the most beautiful piece alongside the Valse macabre, ultimately less "macabre" than a bearer of this Sehnsucht so deeply rooted in the Judaism of the early 20th century.
Far from the Sonata for violin and piano and, even more so, from the Myths, Szymanowski's Three Caprices of Paganini seem to be more audacious in their writing than Godowski's. In 1918, it was no longer a question of simply entertaining, but of exploiting the structure of the theme by breaking up the lines, playing with a refined chromaticism that stretches the harmonic resolutions to the maximum. In fact, these Caprices, and the second in particular, could be orchestrated, so rich is the material. This is a very beautiful slow movement for a concerto! The superb colours of Dmitri Makhtin's bow are carried by the suppleness of the piano, the rhapsodic character that pervades the 24th Caprice. This is certainly spectacular music, but it is even more intimate. The passages of pure evocation surpass the swirling brilliance. A very beautiful disc.
Resmusica, Stéphane Friédérich