{"id":8364,"date":"2012-11-23T08:24:12","date_gmt":"2012-11-23T12:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=8364"},"modified":"2013-05-07T05:32:52","modified_gmt":"2013-05-07T09:32:52","slug":"le-boeuf-sur-le-toit-recreates-1920s-parisian-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=8364","title":{"rendered":"‘Le Boeuf sur le Toit’ recreates 1920s Parisian Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Rebecca Schmid<\/p>\n

The eclectic musical life of the brief but thriving \u2018Roaring twenties\u2019 continues to inspire a nostalgia that is all the more understandable given contemporary classical music\u2019s reorientation toward popular idioms from techno to rock. The latest album of French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, Le Boeuf sur le Toit<\/em>, sets out to recreate the acts of a cabaret bar that provided a hub for the cross-fertilization of jazz and classical, spawning the French expression \u201cfaire le boeuf\u201d (to jam). Stravinsky, the members of Les Six, Picasso and Chanel count among the personalities to have hung out in the Parisian bar, named after a Cocteau-Milhaud ballet. Yet it was a little-known figure that, according to liner notes, provided the \u201csoul of the club.\u201d The pianist and film composer Jean Wi\u00e9ner, one of the first French advocates for jazz in the aftermath of World War One, devised programs such as \u201cconcerts salades\u201d featuring performances of Gershwin and Porter alongside the compositions of friends. The Belgian pianist Cl\u00e9ment Doucet, who mostly made a living accompanying silent films, was a permanent fixture, joining Wi\u00e9ner for four-hand routines.<\/p>\n

Tharaud, having discovered these recordings as a young child, spent years transcribing their arrangements, for which no scores existed. He also met Wi\u00e9ner at age eight. Much in the spirit of the original club, the pianist summoned several musician friends for his project, from the chanteuse Juliette to Nathalie Dessay. Frank Braley is Tharaud\u2019s partner for the Wi\u00e9ner-Doucet duos, which provide some of the album\u2019s highlights. Gershwin\u2019s Why do I Love You?<\/em> has an infectious energy through the joie de vivre of its textures, seamlessly coordinated by the performers. Doucet\u2019s solo riffs on works by Chopin, Liszt and Wagner also deserve to be better known. His dance-like spin on the Liebestod <\/em>in Isoldina <\/em>is especially refreshing in the midst of the deluge for Wagner\u2019s bicentenary. Tharaud moves suavely from each contrasting piece of repertoire to the next, whether in the leisurely stroll of Wi\u00e9ner\u2019s Harlem<\/em>, or in spritely musical theater accompaniment for B\u00e9nabar in Maurice Chevalier\u2019s Gonna Get a Girl<\/em>. The chansonnier\u2019s French accent brings a touch of authenticity and charm to the mix. There are also homegrown musical numbers, such as an excerpt from the operetta Louis XIV <\/em>featuring Guillaume Gallienne.<\/p>\n

The \u2018shimmy movement\u2019 Caramel mou<\/em>, a Cocteau-Milhaud collaboration, provides another rare gem with its fragile polytonality and lightly absurdist lyrics about taking advantage of a younger girl: \u201cPrenez une jeunne fille\/remplissez la de la glace et de gin\u2026et rendez la \u00e0 sa famille\u201d (take a young girl\/fill her up with ice cream and gin\u2026and bring her back to her family). Jean Delescluse gives a performance conjuring the best French cabarets, with Florent Jodelet on percussion ranging from march-like snares to wood blocks evoking horse hooves. Just as priceless is Dessay\u2019s cameo appearance in the soft, trompet-esque vocalising of Blues chant\u00e9<\/em>, one of three such pieces Wiener wrote with instructions for the performer to treat the voice like a brass instrument. Madeleine Peyroux makes for a modern Ella Fitzgerald in Cole Porter\u2019s Let\u2019s Do It<\/em>, while David Chevallier\u2019s banjo adds spirited twang to Tharaud\u2019s rendition of the fox trot Collegiate<\/em>. It is impossible to grow tired of this album as it unfolds, with its eclectic arrangement of repertoire unified by such a tight dramaturgical arc. Wi\u00e9ner\u2019s harpsichord transcription of Saint Louis Blues <\/em>by William Christopher Handy, performed on a 1959 Pleyel instrument, provides yet another surprise with its refined contours of the blues classic. Tharaud has conceived a truly original project that entertains as it illuminates this small but rich piece of musical history.<\/p>\n

Le Boeuf sur le Toit <\/em>is available for purchase on Virgin Classics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

rebeccaschmid.info<\/a><\/p>\n