Irmela Roelcke: Cloches et Carillons
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The theme Irmela Roelcke chose to build her latest piano recording around is strikingly original: classical works that evoke the sonorities of bells, which is to say evening bells, church bells, funeral bells—bells in any number of manifestations. As this encompassing recital shows, the piano is ideally suited to capture the tintinnabulion of bells, something the composers featured clearly understood. The seed for the project was planted when Roelcke familiarized herself with George Enescu's “Carillon nocturne” and, suitably fascinated, proceeded to search out other piano music exploring the theme of bells and carillons.

Much of Cloches et Carillons centres on material from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and as one would expect works by Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Ravel, and Messiaen appear. The Berlin-based pianist is certainly up to whatever challenges the material poses. Among the composers whose works she's recorded are Arnold Schönberg, Artur Schnabel, and Stefan Wolpe, and Roelcke is known for championing contemporary composers and their works. She's also recognized as a specialist in historic keyboard instruments such as the fortepiano, harpsichord, and clavichord. Enhancing the release are liner notes by Jonathan Powell, who provides detailed background for each of the sixteen tracks.

One certainly can't go wrong inaugurating a project with Saint-Saëns, and sure enough Les Cloches du soir provides an excellent entry-point. A tolling phrase and bell-like tones resonate across the piece's chorale-like melody, the effect soothing and inviting. Judging by the music, no one would likely guess the piece was composed during a difficult time, his mother having died the year before and the composer wrestling with depression and thoughts of suicide. Three pieces by Liszt follow: “Abendglocken” entrancing in its soft, repetitive tolling; “Les Cloches de Genève,” a reverie that begins delicately before swelling grandly in classic Liszt style; and Ave Maria—Die Glocken von Rom, whose lilt's intensified by bell-like sonorities in the left hand that underscore the gentle phrases in the right.

Showing herself to be not only pianist but musicologist, Roelcke couples familiar composers with others less often heard. Florent Schmitt's represented by the solemn “Glas” (from 1904's Musiques intimes), whose brooding bell tones and recitative evoke images of death and dying. Louis Vierne's similarly titled “Le Glas” (from 1916's Poèmes des cloches funèbres) is, if anything, even darker in the way its G-sharp tolls throughout and its building tension suggests a funeral ceremony. Felix Blumenfeld's three-part Cloches: Suite pour Piano (1909) also appears, bells clearly intimated in the sparkle of “Cloches et clochettes,” the portent of “Glas funèbre” alleviated by a Chopin-esque central section, and the chiming “Cloches triomphales” as towering and celebratory as expected.

Said to have been inspired by the midday bells of Paris, Ravel's exquisite “La Vallée des cloches” (from Miroirs) is emblematic of the composer and predates Debussy's own attempt to translate the sound of bells to piano, “Cloches à travers les feuilles” (from the second book of Images); unlike Ravel, Debussy drew for inspiration from bells in a village far outside the city. Perhaps the recording's most quintessentially impressionistic setting, “Cloches à travers les feuilles” merges graceful flowing patterns with hushed bell sprinklings and subtle intimations of gamelan. Effecting a surprisingly smooth transition, Messiaen's “Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu,” from his early Préludes, perpetuates the dreamy quality of Debussy's setting whilst suggesting more emphatically bell ringing through the use of haunting patterns characteristic of Messiaen. The through-line continues with the inclusion of Cloches d'adieu, et un sourire, a piece written in 1992 by Messiaen student Tristan Murail as a kind of epitaph for his former teacher and that even quotes from “Cloches d'angoisse et larmes d'adieu.”

November 2022