While others are happy to throw light on the well-tried and familiar, Ivana Gavric takes you on a refreshing and enterprising journey, surprising you with subtle and unexpected musical relationships. Entitled 'Throwback To Dance' she celebrates a meeting in 1895 between Grieg and Ravel, locating a shared love of archaism, of the reworking of ancient dances and patterns by both composers.
Throughout Grieg's 'Holberg Suite' she favours brisk tempi, launching the opening 'Praludium' with a joyous release. And if there are moments when she could have lingered more lovingly, she is nonetheless admirably straightforward and devoid of artifice. She sends a Nordic breeze across 'Aria,' cooling its near Franckian chromaticism and is suitably ebullient in the concluding 'Rigudon.'
Chaminade's 'Norwegienne' is a bracing tribute to Norway, its rhythmic lift a relative of Ravel's 'Forlane' from his 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' while 'Autrefois'(formerly) finds a ready thematic parallel with Dora Pejacevic's 'Erinnerung'(Remembrance), its alternating charm and vigour at the heart of a once neglected now celebrated composer.
Grieg's catchy 'Norwiegen Dance, opus 35 No 2 is followed by Ravel's 'Le Tombeau de Couperin originally 'Suite Francais' before becoming a dual tribute to the past and to Ravel's compatriots who fell in the war. And yet there is no hint of tragedy, of the desolation that permeates, for example, Debussy's 'Berceuse Heroique,'a very different tribute to the fallen, and one where phantom bugle calls echo through a bleak and austere texture. Indeed, the opening 'Prelude' shimmers with a 'premiere matin du jour' optimism, its chiaroscuro captured by Gavric as surely as her sense of enigma—always at the heart of Ravel's genius. Again, there is a fine awareness of the way the Toccata's whirling repeated note momentum is eased by reflection. Above all, there is an avoidance of the literalism one considered the 'sine qua non' of the French performing tradition.
Then there are two special extras, from Dora Pejacevic and Cheryl Frances-Hoad(a first recording), though to say this is to miss more subtle and unmistakable connections. The former is gently nostalgic in keeping with its title while Francis-Hoad's 'Dance Suite' is brief and, again, enigmatic.
Finally, a return to Ravel and his 'A la maniere de Borodin' a flash of wit as gently teasing as it is alluring. The entire recital, given with brio and affection, is aimed at those with a spirit of musical adventure; an exceptionally stimulating issue.
Bryce Morrison