Gramophone: “Beau Soir” review

The latest release in an ongoing collaboration between Delphian and Young Concert Artists Trust, ‘Beau soir’ highlights the talents of cellist Maciej Kułakowski who, here in partnership with Jonathan Ware, has recorded a worthwhile assembly of French sonatas and miniatures.

Debussy’s Cello Sonata (1915) has long been in the repertoire and Kułakowski does justice to the stark emotional contrasts of its ‘Prologue’, the edgy humour of its ‘Sérénade’ and the expressive volatility of its finale. Ravel’s Second Violin Sonata (1927) responds unerringly to this arrangement – whether in the formal ingenuity and the subtle modalities of its initial Allegretto, the punning (never in jest) syncopation of its central ‘Blues’ or extra emotional gravitas accorded its headlong ‘Perpetuum mobile’. More clear-cut in its classicism and still underestimated, Poulenc’s Cello Sonata (1948) is one of his most cohesive chamber works. Kułakowski has the measure of the opening Allegro with its martial undertones, frequently troubled emotion of its ‘Cavatine’ or the playful high jinks of its ‘Ballabile’, then the finale, whose grandly rhetorical opening provides a foil to the engaging animation that follows.

The numerous shorter pieces afford telling complement. Opening with the pensive charms of Debussy’s song ‘Beau soir’, these idiomatic arrangements include the capering activity of that composer’s ‘Minstrels’ (taken from his first book of Préludes) and the wistfully arching melancholy of his La plus que lente. The ‘official’ first three pieces of Satie’s Gnossiennes make for a viable sonatina in their inherently speculative pathos, while the musing poise of Ravel’s Pièce en forme de habanera concludes this recital in appealingly understated terms.

The Debussy and Poulenc are much recorded but Kułakowski and Ware otherwise have the field to themselves, their Ravel Sonata being the most idiomatic of several such transcriptions. Vividly realistic sound and informative annotations enhance an already desirable collection.