Pierre Souvairan - Fauré: Nocturne No. 6, Op. 63 - Honegger: Toccata et Variations - Bartók: Im Freien (2024) [Hi-Res]

Fauré
Fauré composed his 13 Nocturnes between 1883 and 1922, with the 6th one dating from 1894, a work from the fully mature period of the composer.

Alfred Cortot, a remarkable interpreter of Fauré’s music, spoke with deep emotion about the piece, describing it as a “song fraught with thought and meditation, a secret, untold sadness,” followed by “a tender and soothing voice over a murmur of rustling leaves.”

This music is quite aristocratic in its subtle harmonies and impassible rhythmic flow. For those attuned to its depth, it reveals a wisdom and pure joy, conquered, much like Beethoven’s, through hard toil and strict discipline.

Toccata and Variations by Honegger
Honegger’s Toccata and Variations, written in 1916, is the youthful work of a 24-year-old composer. While it displays some inexperience, it also firmly asserts a highly personal style, alternating between athletic, expressive, ruthless, and tender.

The Toccata is brimming with a healthy, sportsmanlike vitality. The Variations feature a theme reminiscent of Fauré (op. 73), serving as a funeral song, where slow, anguished sections are interrupted by breathless, fateful, fast variations. The final passage is particularly striking, mystical in the spirit of César Franck’s Aria, an earnest act of youthful faith.

Bartók’s Out of Doors
The cycle of five pieces titled Out of Doors by Bartók dates from 1926. The influence of Debussy is strongly felt, as Debussy was among the first to move away from a human-centered world, where nature acts as a mere backdrop.

With Debussy, there is already a sense of vast, unforgiving nature towering above human frailty. In each of Bartók’s pieces, the frail human voice helplessly confronts the power of the elements, savage rhythms, the obsessive voices of the night, and chaotic dissonances that no Orpheus could ever tame.

At its core, it is a pessimistic work, much like many of Debussy’s compositions, but without self-pity—both unsettling and mesmerizing.