Originally posted on March 26
Pascal Rogé turns seventy-five on April 6. To mark this milestone he has recorded Fauré’s complete Barcarolles. Recent Rogé, too, these and Dolly all captured on a single day, August 28 last year at Église luthérienne Saint-Pierre in Paris, Rogé’s ideally light-action piano beautifully recorded in a sympathetic acoustic for a baker’s dozen of pieces that might be described as miniatures yet each has much that can be revealed within the elusive harmony. And Rogé does just that – masterly and devoted playing of beguiling music that, depending on the listener, can paint pictures or tell stories, or can be revelled in for musical development – of capriciousness and complexity, from Opus 26 to Opus 116 (covering 1882 to 1921), a variety of moods and meanings, nothing predictable or repeated, Rogé’s command of them natural and instinctive, rhymes with distinctive. With the piano duet that is the ever-delightful Dolly, the second pair of hands belongs to Rogé’s wife, Elena Font, the six movements utterly charming from this duo, perfectly attuned to each other and to the music, with two digital-only tracks also available. Strong competition from Lewis & Osborne though, as there is in the Barcarolles from Marc-André Hamelin, also Hyperion. Meanwhile Rogé (and Font) are on Decca 487 1913, released on April 3.