Mendelssohn: 3 Etudes, Op. 104b

“Rachmaninov's unrivalled pianism delights in a stunning recital that opens with a spellbinding Bach Sarabande.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 *****

“There was a time in the 19th century when Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words were regularly regarded as the third great collection of piano music after Beethoven's 32 sonatas and Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues. While Chopin's piano music is still dominant, Mendelssohn's star as a pianist-composer has faded. It is a splendid idea of the young Toulouse-born French pianist Bertrand Chamayou to choose five of the most striking Songs Without Words and make them a centrepiece for what he describes as a 'Liederabend without words'.
The Songs Without Words are among the least difficult of the pieces here technically, but the other pieces are much more demanding, not just the two bigger pieces, the Variations sérieuses and the Rondo capriccioso, but such pieces as the ThreeStudies. It says much for Chamayou's virtuosity and artistry that he makes the results so magnetic.
He opens with a brief and powerful Prelude in B minor, leading to a sparkling account of the Rondo capriccioso bringing out echoes of the Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream, which right at the end of the recital comes as a tailpiece in Rachmaninov's arrangement.
The articulation in the Three Studies is phenomenally clear and light, as it is too in Chamayou's dazzling account of the Caprices. There are similar qualities in the longest and most ambitious of the pieces, the Variations sérieuses. Along with the Songs Without Words it is good too to have Liszt's surprisingly unshowy arrangements of Mendelssohn's most famous Lied, 'On Wings of Song'. Clean, clear sound to match the playing.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The Songs Without Words are among the least difficult of the pieces here technically, but the other pieces are much more demanding… It says much for Chamayou's virtuosity and artistry that he makes the results so magnetic.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“Frith is a powerful player...This is music of substance and Frith gives it its due.” BBC Music Magazine

“The multiplicity of notes in Mendelssohn's piano music sometimes lays him open to the charge of 'note-spinning'. So what higher praise for Benjamin Frith than to say that thanks to his fluency, not a single work outstays its welcome here. The unchallengeable masterpiece is the Variations sérieuses, so enthusiastically taken up by Clara Schumann, and still a repertory work today. Frith characterises each variation with telling contrasts of tempo and touch without sacrificing the continuity and unity of the whole.
Equally importantly, he never lets us forget the sérieuses of the title.
No less impressive is his sensitively varied palette in the early E-major Sonata (unmistakable homage to Beethoven's Op-101) so often helped by subtle pedalling. But surely the recitative of the Adagio at times needs just a little more intensity and underlying urgency. Of the miniatures the six Kinderstücke ('Christmas Pieces' – written for the children of a friend) emerge with an unforced charm. As music they lack the romance of Schumann's ventures into a child's world, just as the Three Studies do of Chopin's magical revelations in this sphere. However, Frith's fingers never let him down. In the first B-flat Study he even seems to acquire a third hand to sustain its middle melody.
For sheer seductive grace, the independent Gondellied haunts the memory most of all.
With pleasantly natural sound, too, this disc is quite a bargain.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Martin Jones' musicianship is perhaps seen at its best in his playing of the 'Songs Without Words'. For many years Mendelssohn's music for the keyboard was neglected but this six CD set, so beautifully played by Martin Jones, will do much to earn Mendelssohn's music for the keyboard the attention it deserves.” Contemporary Review