Poèmes

Bizet: Carmen Fantasy;

Fauré: Papillon; Philippot: Poèmes; Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte; Saint-saëns: Carnival of the Animals – The Swan Lilian Meurin (euphonium),

Victor Métral (piano)

Indésens INDE121 52:54 mins

The French euphonium soloist Lilian Meurin and the energetic pianist Victor Métral have ample opportunity to strut their virtuoso stuff in an attractive and sometimes startling programme of music for, or arranged for, this unusual mix of instruments.

Gabriel Philippot’s Poèmes (201415), is the most substantial work, a three-movement concerto of sorts, in which each movement is based on a poem – respectively by Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Verlaine. In musical language clearly paying tribute to a post-ravel soundworld, Philippot makes considerable demands on his players and the quirky nature of the music is perhaps the most attractive thing about it, especially in the final movement, which is a paean by Verlaine to drunkenness (about which the poet knew a thing or two) including the sound of a cork popping.

The euphonium is a very, well, euphonious instrument. Meurin’s sound is silky smooth, his musicianship is seriously classy and the technical tricks of Fauré’s Papillon and the Bizet-based Carmen Fantasy let him pull out all the stops; yet the sound is generally, by its nature, a little bit lacking in bite and colouristic variety. These qualities are compensated for by Métral, whose efforts at the piano are at times positively heroic.

Jessica Duchen

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★