Gargantua delights…
Julian Haylock, in the latest edition of the prestigious string magazine The Strad, wrote a glowing review of Angèle Dubeau & La Pietà’s latest recording, featuring Jean Françaix’s Gargantua.
” […] Composed as recently as 1970, it sounds for all the world like a gently playful product of1920s Paris, with its knowing musical asides guaranteed to put a smile on anyone’s face. Throughout, Françaix sustains an exquisite luminosity and impeccable ear for balance, which Angele Dubeau and her gifted ensemble of musicians play with such radiant warmth and sensitivity (ideally matched by the velvety engineering) that it is impossible to imagine the work better performed.”
[…] This issue’s impeccably high performing standards are fully maintained in the shorter pieces, with some truly melt-in-the-mouth textures and heavenly phrasing in the piano-and-strings L’heure du berger. The otherwise light-hearted Serenade B.E.A. ends with a haunting epilogue, acknowledging the fact that during work on the piece a certain Beatrice (after whom it is named)jilted the wealthy Hungarian who had commissioned the work for her as a present in the first place. A wonderful disc.“