Search - Frederic Chopin, Camille Saint-Saens, Johann II [Junior] Strauss :: Jeanne-Marie Darré: Early Recordings

La Darre, la magnifique

Mark McCue | Denver | 12/20/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Out here in Denver we used to wonder why this great virtuosa would want to stop by our humble province and treat us to her amazing recitals and concerts. When we found out that she was quite an outdoor and mountain enthusiast, we understood. And having her old pal Golschmann as conductor of the orchestra made her a regular on our cartelloni.After one luxuriates in these old Pathe things together, Darre comes into focus on the world stage. The Saint Saens eclipses her later one with Fourestier; here she has Paray. It's a significant difference, because with her sense of line, inner-voicings, and fanatic attention to timbral qualities and overtones, one can hear that she is the pianistic equivalent OF Paray. Here we come face-to-face with what Paris musical life was like when Darre and Paray were both in town. The results are engrossing and original without going outside the mark set by Saint Saens himself (who had been dead aorund 20 years when Pathe did this). There is a dynamism here that is unique and right, and immortal.We also have forgotten this pianist as a supreme interpreter of Chopin who shows up here with a snazzy bravado that is akin to Novaes, but with more refinement. The carillon highs come through strongly on the old recordings, the bass drops off...but since you know it's there, your mind can fill in the aural info. Like her much later Vanguard recordings, the incredibly agile midrange voicings are front and center without punching you. These are amazing performances, characteristic, admirable.All of her other repertoire more or less affect the listener the same way--like her counterpart Paray, Darre never, ever tries to archly make a piece more than it is, but brings out the maximum the work has to offer. And that can be considerably more than what we might divine from the program on paper. Really, folks, there'll never be another one like Darre. There will never be an elegant, athletic, stunning lady in silk pants who walks purposefully on stage, chucks her bejeweled bolero on a stagehand, and sits down for a couple of hours of enchantment, letting us in on her magic, including us listeners as if we're in her salon where she is hostess to the composers themselves nursing their drinks.Those were incredibly memorable evenings."