Plainte calme

• Main performer: Alexander Lonquich
• Booklet languages: German, English, French
• Time: 79:33
• Release Date: 2004

Review

This disc has everything going for it. First, the repertoire is attractive and challenging. Second, the performance is evocative and virtuosic. Third, the recording is vivid and immediate. What more could a listener want?

First, the repertoire: mixing Fauré's proto-modernist Impromptus with Messiaen's ex post facto-romantic Preludes and Ravel's preternaturally difficult Gaspard de la nuit is ingenious, revealing things about all three composers that no other program could reveal. Second, the performance: Alexander Lonquich is a German pianist whose technique is impeccable, whose tone is magisterial, and whose taste is irreproachable, a German pianist who can play French music with cosmopolitan elegance. Third, the recording: perhaps one should by now be used to the irrefutable fact that ECM makes some of the most realistic and impressive-sounding recordings in the world, but each new disc is a revelation. Taken all together, Alexander Lonquich's recital is exactly the sort of thing to excite and enthrall even the most jaded listener. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide

Performances

Composer	Title	Time
Gabriel Fauré	Impromptu for piano No. 3 in A flat major, Op. 34	5:03
Olivier Messiaen	Preludes (8) for piano, I/2	35:53
Gabriel Fauré	Impromptu for piano No. 1 in E flat major, Op. 25	4:04
Gabriel Fauré	Impromptu for piano No. 4 in D flat major, Op. 91	4:43
Gabriel Fauré	Impromptu for piano No. 2 in F minor, Op. 31	3:54
Maurice Ravel	Gaspard de la nuit, for piano	23:47
Gabriel Fauré	Impromptu for piano No. 5 in F sharp minor, Op. 102	2:09