Sturzenegger: Composers and Performers & Bizet: Jeux d'enfants, Op. 22, WD 56

Album review

While the Swiss Gall (formerly Gallo) label is not a vanity label, some of its projects take on something of a vanity tinge. Sturzenegger: Compositeurs et interprètes focuses on a Swiss family with a longstanding reputation for music-making; how many dads do you know would celebrate the birth of his first son by writing a Ballade for horn and piano? Kurt Sturzenegger did, and it is included here as played by said son and daughter-in-law. It is a bright, mildly Hindemithian work with references to the horn figure from Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's "Lüstige Streiche," and that is not all it has in common with Strauss. Given observed standards in European music circa 1976, the conservatism of Kurt Sturzenegger's effort is striking, but nowhere near so as the compositions of the son in question, Christophe. Christophe Sturzenegger's pieces, save the piano piece Le Tombeau de Debussy, are couched in an idiom owing to Beethoven and Schubert and behave as though the 150 years twixt Schumann's death and the 2005 release date on this disc simply didn't happen. Within that context, the Klavierstück in g-moll is the most successful entry; the Debussy homage is a quodlibet of gestures from the French composer's arsenal that is attractive, but doesn't hold quite together.
The main event here is the Sonata in F sharp minor for violin and piano composed in 1907 by Hans Sturzenegger, Kurt's granduncle, who was born in 1890 but carried away by illness at the tender age of 19, leaving behind a small cache of compositions. This is a very fine and ambitious sonata, influenced by Brahms, lucid and well developed, with strong themes. While it certainly belies the age of its composer, this is not the ideal outing for it; Christophe Sturzenegger's accompaniment is uneven and Marc Paquin, violinist of the Picasso Quartet, contends with it as best he can. The jittery, heavy-handed accompaniment actually makes Paquin sound like he's off the mark, when he is, in fact, just hanging in there. Nerves also seem to underpin the Duo sforzando's performance of Bizet's familiar Jeux d'enfants; its tempo is jumpy like nine cups of coffee.
Although the information is present, it is unclear from the backplate -- at least at first -- as to just who composed what in the program, and the English translation of the notes are a jumble. Unless your family name happens to be Menuhin, Shaham, or Chung, this is top-flight familial music-making, but to most ears Sturzenegger: Compositeurs et interprètes will seem like a strictly amateur operation.

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