Composer: Modest Mussorgsky
Performer: Alice Ader
Number of Discs: 2
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Fuga Libera
Catalogue: FUG566
Release: 2010
Size: 482 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
CD 01
01. Une larme
02. Impromptu passionné (Souvenir de Betlov et Liouba)
03. Rêverie
04. Scène de Foire (La Foire de Sorotchinsk)
05. Au Village
06. En Crimée (Capriccio)
07. Ghourzouff
08. Hopak de jeunes Ukrainiens gaillards (La Foire de Sorotchinsk)
09. Souvenir d’enfance
Souvenirs d’enfance
10. I. Niania et moi
11. II. Première punition
12. La Capricieuse
13. La Couturière (Scherzino)
14. Scherzo in C-Sharp Minor
15. Intermezzo in modo classico (Transcription by Modest Moussorgsky)
16. Jeux d’enfants – Les quatre coins
CD 02
01. Une nuit sur le Mont Chauve
02. Méditation (Feuillet d’album)
Tableaux d’une exposition
03. I. Promenade
04. II. Gnomus
05. III. Promenade 2
06. IV. Il vecchio castello
07. V. Promenade 3
08. VI. Tuileries (Dispute d’enfants après jeux)
09. VII. Bydlo
10. VIII. Promenade 4
11. IX. Ballet des poussins dans leurs coques
12. X. Samuel Goldenberg et Schmuyle
13. XI. Promenade 5
14. XII. Limoges. Le marché (La Grande Nouvelle)
15. XIII. Catacombae. Sepulcrum romanum
16. XIV. Promenade 6
17. XV. La cabane sur des pattes de poules (Baba Yaga)
18. XVI. La grande porte dans la capitale de Kiev
Every disc of Alice Ader is awaited with baited breath by her fans: this one being no exception. From the first bars of Une Larme, Mussorgsky’s inner world is revealed in this new 2 CD set of the complete piano works. It includes the mighty Pictures at an exhibition plus Mussorgsky’s transcription of Une nuit sur le Mont Chauve by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Alice Ader, the noted concert and solo pianist is equally at home in contemporary and classical music. She earned her diplomas from the C.N.S.M. of Paris (Unanimous First Prize in 1963) and the Viennese Academy 1970. From 1967 through 1970, she studied with Geneviève Dehelly and Jacques Février in France and with Bruno Seidlhofer in Austria. For Fuga Libera she has already given us her live Art of Fugue.
While casual Russophiles may be content with just a recording of Pictures at an Exhibition, rabid Russophiles will want the complete piano works of Mussorgsky, but this set by will not do at all. Ader’s heart is in the right place, but her fingers are all too often in the wrong place, or, indeed, all over the place. Her interpretations are often fascinating and might even be persuasive in more capable hands, but in Ader’s hands, most of the music here, particularly on the first disc, sounds conspicuously sentimental. Even less successful are the performances of the vastly more difficult works on the second disc. Ader drops so many notes, and is so timid, so tremulous, and so hesitant in her attacks that listening to the more problematic movements from Pictures at an Exhibition often becomes more trouble than it’s worth. This is a shame, since Ader has plainly got a real feel for Mussorgsky’s uncanny music, and passages of Catacombs from Pictures and the whole coda of the transcription of Night on Bald Mountain are quite effective. But as a whole, these performances are too poorly played to be listened to more than once. Fuga Libera’s digital sound is hard and cluttered.