Jonathan Freeman-Attwood - Faure - Buffalo News

Here is a rarity. As the notes begin, "Not often does the opportunity arise to publish over 30 hitherto unknown pieces by a major composer from a century ago." The good news is, the composer is Gabriel Faure. The bad news is, this isn't music that will change the world. The "Vocalises" were little teaching pieces that Faure threw together, often on scraps of music paper, to serve as sight-reading tests at the Paris Conservatoire. You have to love how the liner notes sell it to us. The Vocalises, they say, "offer a rare glimpse into a composer's busy working life. ... Some were probably dashed off during busy weeks in the office; some suggest a sudden inspiration taking Faure by surprise ... Once tidied up, these complete drafts were then used by the Conservatoire's official copyist to prepare tidy scores for exam candidates and juries to read from." Ha, ha! It sounds like a joke out of P.D.Q. Bach. The music, though, is happily better. They take surprise twists and turns, which makes sense considering they were supposed to put students through their paces. They are pleasant, graceful and individual, if sometimes sharply truncated. Many of them do amount to good music. Thanks be to composers who make learning pleasant and poetic. With these pieces, Faure joins this fellowship, which reaches from Chopin and his etudes and Mozart and his oddly poignant learners' sonatas down through Clementi and Czerny. To complete the disc, Freeman-Attwood and pianist Daniel-Ben Pienaar collaborate in music by composers including Couperin, Chabrier, Rameau and Faure.