Lebanese Piano Music, Vol. 2

Album review

Piano sonatas are not what immediately comes to mind when we think of the East, or Lebanon to be precise. It is more the smells, the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, the perfumes and the delicious cuisine. It would be in vain, therefore, to search for traces of conventional Eastern themes in this second album that Tatiana Primak-Khoury has dedicated to composers of her country. 

At the forefront of this album can be found the international and cosmopolitan figure Anis Fuleihan (1900-1970), a Lebanese composer brought up in Cyprus who spent a great part of his career in New York before returning to Beirut to take on the leadership of the musical Conservatoire. The descendant of an Armenian family, Boghos Gelalian (1927-2011) moved to Lebanon after the loss of his parents. He then studied with French organist Bertrand Robillard, familiarizing himself with Eastern compositional techniques. A hotel pianist, he moved on to work as an arranger for Radio Lebanon, before gaining a name for himself through international competitions. 

Houtaf Khoury, born in Tripoli in 1967, is the youngest of the composers represented here. He came to Lebanon in recent times, traversing military conflicts, civil wars, political crises and social uprisings. Conscious of the role that art can play, Khoury expresses in his music an ardent plea for a more human world. As for Waleed Howrani (born in New York in 1948), he is one of the most well-known piano virtuosos in the Middle East. After having worked in the Beirut Conservatoire, he continued his studies with Emil Gilels in Moscow. Seriously ill and unable to continue his career, Howrani followed right to the end his dream of being a composer. His 1995 Lebanese Rhapsody is a very genuine ode to his youth. It is also the only truly “Eastern” piece in this album and shows, above all, the diversity of Lebanese composers. © François Hudry/Qobuz