François Kerdoncuff, Quatuor Louvigny - Gabriel Dupont: Poème, La Maison dans les dunes (2003)

Gabriel Dupont, born in 1878, was a pupil of Massenet and Widor and, probably encouraged by his friendship with Vierne, dipped more than the odd toe into Franckian waters. Franck’s influence is clear in the Poème for piano quintet of 1911, a steamy work requiring considerable virtuosity, and here receiving it. The progress of the three movements from ‘sombre and tormented’ through ‘clear and calm’ to ‘joyous and sunny’ is unmistakably charted by the composer and these players are alert to every signal. Similarly, in La maison dans les dunes, a 10-movement, 40-minute piano suite, Francois Kerdoncuff revels in the wide range of dynamics and texture, and we are left in no doubt as to the scherzoid character of ‘Le soleil joue dans les vagues’ or the menace at the start of ‘Mon frère le Vent et ma soeur la Pluie’. But what does it all add up to?

The booklet note quotes Fauré as saying that Dupont was the most gifted ‘musicien’ of his generation. Whether one takes ‘musicien’ here to mean ‘composer’ or ‘musician’, it has to be admitted that Fauré’s kindliness sometimes got the better of him. More gifted than Ravel? Too often I was aware of the wheels going round: the rising sequences, the whole-tone bit to engender tension, the soupy Franckian chord to switch the track of the argument. And sad to say, whatever gifts Dupont may have had, it looks on this showing as though the gift of melody was denied him. Not wanting to bring politics into it, but for me there needed to be a lot more substance beneath the undeniably professional presentation.