MUSIQUE DE SALON Claude-Bénigne Balbastre
Mitzi Meyerson
GCD 921803
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Performing artists
Mitzi Meyerson, fortepiano (Broadwood original) & harpsichord (after Taskin)
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CLAUDE-BÉNIGNE BALBASTRE (1772-1799)
Musique de salon
CD I PréludeLa Monmartel ou la BrunoyLa BellaudLa SuzanneLa MorisseauLa LaporteLa De CazeLa LamarckLa BervilleLa Castelmore
CD II La D’HericourtLa CourteilleLa LugeacLa GentyLa MalesherbesLa Berryer ou la LamignonLa D'EsclignacLa SegurLa BoullogneMarche des Marseillois et l'air Ça-Ira
About this CD
Maybe it is the fact that they are women, perhaps it is because of their preference for discretion over visibility, maybe it is in order to give a higher sense of priority to the timeless rather than to immediate success, the case is that both Mara Galassi and Mitzi Meyerson, the only two women in Glossa's artistic lineup, have become skilled in producing minority yet exquisitely-refined and lasting recording projects. Their discs indeed have attained cult status, for they succeed by word of mouth rather than through any more established means of communication. Such will be the case also, we suspect, with Mitzi Meyerson's latest project, called Musique de salon, wherein she introduces us to a charming and delicious recital of pieces by Claude-Bénigne Balbastre. Sounds from a Taskin harpsichord and from a beautifully restored Broadwood fortepiano from 1792 take us back to the fascinating ambience of the pre-revolutionary Parisian salons… although the disc, appropriately, reaches a climax with a series of variations on La Marseillaise. Philippe Beaussant in his essay for the booklet: "The music informally known as 'salon music' is not always as futile as it might at first appear. The very fact that it evolved in keeping with social mores, tastes, trends and even fashions means that it is a privileged witness of the history of music. This is wonderfully illustrated by Claude-Bénigne Balbastre." The second booklet includes a long interview with Mitzi Meyerson, offering her in-depth views on the music and some amazing "making of" details.
Mitzi Meyerson has been delving of late for Glossa into unjustly forgotten keyboard repertory from the Baroque. Praised by no less a critic than Nicholas Kenyon for her recording of Gottlieb Muffat’s Componimenti Musicali per il Cembalo (“Eureka! I’ve known these wonderful pieces for years, having bought an old edition of the music, but have never heard them properly performed. So it’s a joy to hear Mitzi Meyerson’s glorious realisation of these 18th-century suites, which lie at the heart of the high baroque style...”), Meyerson now turns her attention to the shadowy figure of Englishman Richard Jones. [read more...]
There are keyboard players whose names adorn books of technical exercises – Carl Czerny, Charles-Louis Hanon and JB Cramer spring to mind – but Mitzi Meyerson, Glossa’s very own expert in sumo wrestling, social work and a Persian cat named Yofi, is cast from a somewhat different mould. It will not just be piano and harpsichord students who will have cause to recall the Chicago-born artist but any number of her fellow citizens (including non keyboard-playing cabbies) now that the ‘Mitzi Meyerson Way’ has officially been opened outside the main entrance to Roosevelt University on downtown Wabash Avenue in Chicago’s 2nd Ward. [read more...]
Mitzi Meyerson’s insight into (and experience with) the harpsichord literature of the Baroque is such that when she makes a visit to the recording studio, one knows that something rare, fascinating and illuminating will emerge. This has been the case in recent years with both the Claviersuiten by Georg Böhm and the Musique de Salon of Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (which have also appeared on Glossa); the latest exploration beyond the mainstream undertaken by Mitzi Meyerson – Muffat’s Componimenti Musicali – is charged with the same character and sense of expectation. This is not the Georg Muffat who studied in Paris with Lully but his son, Gottlieb (also known as Theofilo), who spent much of his career in Vienna and whose set of six harpsichord suites Componimenti Musicali appeared towards the end of the 1730s. [read more...]
Mitzi Meyerson signals her return on Glossa with a further example of her ability to seek out entertaining music that for too long has been ignored and perform it with all the subtlety, charm and musical skill that such music demands. For her new Glossa release she presents a demonstration of the compositional joys provided by one of the lesser-known French keyboard masters – Claude-Bénigne Balbastre. In her substantial discography there are already recordings given over to other bypassed talents such as Jacques Duphly, Georg Böhm, Antoine Forqueray and even the Fourth Book of François Couperin. [read more...]