Corentin Boissier: Two Piano Concertos and a Sonata
The phrase ‘unashamed Romantic’ might not have been coined for the French composer Corentin Boissier, born in the Paris suburbs in 1995, but it certainly fits him well. As the titles of his Glamour Concerto and Philip Marlowe Concerto suggest, he revels in the full-textured sound of 1940s and ’50s Hollywood, the golden age of Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto, Rota’s Legend of the Glass Mountain and other such high-calorie classics. The Second Piano Sonata, the Sonata Appassionata, is no less Neo-Romantic, but has flecks of Russian colour, locating it downstream from Rachmaninov.
Valentina Seferinova, piano
Ukrainian Festival Orchestra (Tracks 1-3, 7-9)
John McLaughlin Williams, conductor (Tracks 1-3, 7-9)
Listen To This Recording:
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Glamour Concerto (2012; orch. 2016)
- I Glamour appassionato (Allegro)
- II Manhattan Waltz-Romance (Moderato, tempo di Valse Boston)
- III Spanish Lovers in Brooklyn (Andante – Allegro all’espagnola)
- I Allegro impetuoso (quasi una fantasia)
- II Intermezzo: Andante espressivo
- III Finale: Allegro appassionato
- I Allegro drammatico –
- II Lento (Passacaglia) –
- III Allegro feroce, tempo di toccata
Piano Sonata No. 2, Appassionata (2015)
Philip Marlowe Concerto (2013; rev. 2018)
FIRST RECORDINGS
MusicWeb International :
‘The highly-committed performances from the Ukrainian Festival Orchestra are very much at one with the composer’s intentions, with inspired American conductor, John McLaughlin Williams, constantly keeping them on their toes, and extracting the maximum pizazz from each section.
In Bulgarian pianist Valentina Seferinova, Boissier has a fine exponent to deal with the powerful style of writing, which frequently leans more towards the massive chordal writing in Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, than work demanding anything like the intricate passage-work and pianism in a later Rachmaninov concerto. The absolutely first-rate recordings are most vivid and additionally add to the Boissier’s total credibility and overall appeal of his works.’
—Philip R Buttall, MusicWeb International