Le Beau: Complete Piano Music (Luise Adolpha Le Beau)

Chronique

Like so many female composers of bygone centuries, the music of Luise Adolpha Le Beau has been slow to come to light. She was a composer/pianist of the late 19th century who toured throughout Europe and associated with the top echelon of musicians, composers, and critics of her day. Very few of her chamber works have been re-published in the early 21st century, but not much else of her music, nor information about her or her oeuvre overall, is widely available. Ana-Marija Markovina presents this recording of her piano music as just the second recording devoted to Le Beau's work. From the first works, numbered Op. 1 and Op. 3, one hears that Le Beau was thoroughly trained and secure in the Germanic, Romantic tradition. In this earlier music, there is formalism in structure, but there is also a sense of melody and imagery. The Op. 3 Variations may not have the most interesting theme, but Markovina plays it with effective shaping, and it becomes more attractive in its different Mendelssohnian guises. The first movement of the Sonata, Op. 8, even quotes a couple of measures from Mendelssohn's Song without Words, Op. 102/5, and it has some of Schumann's heroism. As the opus numbers progress, the formalism does seem to loosen up a bit, and there is more of a sentimental sound. Could this be because Le Beau was maturing or because she wanted to appeal to a broader, salon- or home-music audience? Regardless, the music is lighter and flows a little more easily. The Opp. 53, 57, and 59 demonstrate Le Beau's usage of Chopin's forms -- the funeral march, nocturne, mazurka, and barcarolle -- and ornamentation. The final work Markovina performs is Abendklänge, Op. 64, which again evokes Schumann. Rather than ending in the same quiet thoughtfulness of its opening, it finishes in a celebratory way that gives the impression that the entire piece is more of an aubade than an evening song. Generally Le Beau's music as offered by Markovina's confident playing should appeal to anyone who favors the 19th century composer/pianists, and especially to those who have taken an interest in the female representatives of that group, such as Agathe Backer-Grøndahl and Cécile Chaminade.

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