Finghin Collins - Hommage à Pleyel (2025) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34: I. Presto
02. Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34: II. Adagio
03. Sonata in E Minor, Hob. XVI:34: III. Vivace molto
04. Rondo in E-Flat Major, B. 613
05. Sonata in B-Flat Major, Op. 91: I. Allegro
06. Sonata in B-Flat Major, Op. 91: II. Andante ma non troppo
07. Sonata in B-Flat Major, Op. 91: III. Allegro molto
08. Three Nocturnes, Op. 9: No. 1 in B-Flat Minor
09. Three Nocturnes, Op. 9: No. 2 in E-Flat Major
10. Three Nocturnes, Op. 9: No. 3 in B Major
11. Waltz in A Minor
12. Au bord de la mer
13. 1ère Mazurka, Op. 48
14. 4ème Mazurka de Salon
15. Nocturne, Op. 36
16. Hommage à Haydn, L. 115
17. L'Isle joyeuse, L. 106

The origins of this project go back to 2022, when I was invited to perform on a rebuilt Pleyel 280 concert grand piano dating from 1937. The piano had been completely restored and rebuilt by Matthias Maurer of Piano Workshop, Puidoux, Switzerland and the concert was to take place in neighbouring Cully, as part of the festival Lavaux Classic 2023. The concept of the concert was to have two concert grand pianos on stage, a Steinway D and the Pleyel. I was to play a programme on both pianos, allowing the audience to compare the two instruments.

The experience was revelatory, particularly as I shared some movements across both instruments, allow­ing for a true comparison of the two pianos. The reaction from audience and press was unanimously positive. I had made a new friend, falling totally in love with the sound of the Pleyel piano and the ease with which one could draw beautiful sounds from it. I found it particularly beautiful in the slow movements of Haydn and Mozart sonatas, where the long notes seemed to linger longer than usual, but I also relished its singing, clear tone in Chopin and Schumann.

Almost immediately, I decided that I wanted to record a CD on this piano, with a programme celebrating the history of the Pleyel family and brand. The pro­gramme opens with one of my favourite sonatas by Joseph Haydn, the piano teacher of Ignaz Pleyel. I have been playing his E minor Sonata for years and I love the mix of humour and darkness, light and shade with its wickedly cheeky finale alternating between major and minor. This is followed by two lesser-known works by Ignaz Pleyel (1757–1831), who as well as being a pianist and composer was also a music publisher. In 1807 he founded the Pleyel piano manufacturing firm, which was to become very important in France during the nineteenth century. The influence of Haydn is clear in both the E flat Rondo and the short B flat Sonata; in particular the almost operatic, bubblingly energetic opening of the Sonata’s first movement and its witty and brief finale.

We now enter the world of Frédéric Chopin and Camille Pleyel, youngest son of Ignaz. Camille joined the firm in 1815 and became its owner when his father died in 1831. Pleyel supplied pianos to Chopin, who considered them the last word in perfection. The link between the friends was cemented by Chopin’s dedication of his three exquisite Nocturnes Op. 9, also composed in 1831, to Camille’s wife Marie Moke. Before we leave Chopin, we fast-forward to 2024 and the surprising discovery at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City of a short waltz for piano by Chopin. When I was in New York last autumn, I was fortunate enough to meet Robinson McClellan, As­sociate Curator of Music Manuscripts at the Library. He had discovered the tiny manuscript among a file of letters and other documents. The waltz is a mere sketch and takes only about a minute to perform (with repeat!), but it is full of turmoil and well-suited to the darker registers of the Pleyel piano. I couldn’t resist including it in this programme.

We next hear works by two almost entirely forgotten composers – the Franco-Irish Joseph O’Kelly (1828– 1885) and the French Georges Pfeiffer (1835–1908). They were friends and both were partners in the Pleyel firm. In particular, I was fascinated to learn about O’Kelly, the eldest son of a Dublin-born piano teacher Joseph Kelly and his French wife Marie Duval. Although Joseph never became a French citizen and felt quite attached to his ancestral Ireland, he lived his entire life in France and apparently didn’t speak a word of English. The Kellys / O’Kellys went on to become an important musical dynasty in France in subsequent years, Joseph’s brilliant son Henri O’Kelly rubbing shoulders with the likes of Claude Debussy and Gabriel Pierné.

The four works on the CD, two by each composer, are light salon pieces which nowadays have been totally forgotten. They are full of charm and elegance and transport us back to the French salons of the mid-nineteenth century.

The CD finishes with two works by Claude Debussy, who also owned a Pleyel piano and whose music seems utterly suited to its sound palette. The first piece is the rarely-heard Hommage à Haydn, one of five pieces commissioned by the writer Jules Écorcheville in 1909 to mark the centenary of Haydn’s death. Each piece was based on a theme derived rather crudely from the letters of Haydn’s name: “B-A-D-D-G”. Debussy contributed a short mysteri­ous waltz whose theme appears in several guises throughout.

The final piece of the recording is an altogether better-known work, the celebrated L’Isle joyeuse, dating from 1904, when Debussy had escaped to Jersey with the singer Emma Bardac, abandoning his wife Lilly in Paris. The composer said the work was inspired by Watteau’s 1717 painting L’Embarquement pour Cythère and indeed the piece evokes brilliantly the watery journey, the rising excitement and the eventual ecstatic arrival. The piece also wonderfully portrays the composer’s ecstasy at finding himself on his own Island of Joy with the object of his affection, who went on to become his second wife.

It has been a great joy to record this programme on such a very special piano and to invoke a sound world which is subtly different from the norm. It has also been a privilege to record the CD in the famous Salle de Musique in La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland – a concert hall of which I had heard so much.

It is important to note that with this CD I am not seeking to recreate the sound of an old Pleyel piano from the 19th century. This piano is a modern twen­tieth-century instrument and very different from the earlier Pleyel pianos, many of which survive to this day and which have featured on many other recordings. The Pleyel 280 concert grand which we hear on this recording is a testament to the last great period of French piano manufacturing before the Second World War. This piano – numbered 977 out of a total of 999 – is one of the very last great concert grands which Pleyel built.

I would like to thank all of the organisations and individuals whose generosity, advice and support have helped make this project a reality. In particular I wish to thank Matthias Maurer for rescuing this instrument and nurturing it back to life.

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