Vanessa Wagner INLAND

 

INLAND

 

Vanessa Wagner LISZT, PÄRT

Liszt liked to introduce himself as « half Franciscan, half Gypsy», allowing sensual pleasures to mingle with a profound mystical feeling. With Poetic and Religious Harmonies, inspired by a volume of poetry by Lamartine, the title seems to encapsulate the composer’s passions: literature and spirituality.

In this work, Liszt, the greatest virtuoso of his time and the inventor of the recital, enhances all expressive and technical possibilities of the piano, elevating his favourite instrument to the rank of the ambassador of romanticism.

Vanessa Wagner CLAUDE DEBUSSY Images & Estampes

The inner fire of Vanessa Wagner Pierre Froment, a student of Alfred Cortot, was Vanessa Wagner's teacher at the Rennes Conservatory.

He prepared her for the Paris Conservatory where she learned with Dominique Merlet and Jean-François Heisser, after which she studies with Alain Planès. From all theses teachers she inherited the French taste for a "beautiful sound" suffused with radiance and colour, and developed a touch that includes both poetry and presence. Her first recording, released in 1996 and dedicated to the music of Rachamninov, earned high marks from the critics, who praised her 'maturity' and 'lucidity'. In 1999 her Scriabine genre piece album received numerous honours and led her being awarded, at age 25, the Instrumentalist Soloist revelation prize at the French Music Victories. Vanessa Wagner has proven that she revels in surrounding herself with those whose artistry is bound up at once with their highly-developed sensitivity and their spontaneous expressiveness. As these qualities also resonate with her deepest aspirations, it was natural that she should turn to the works of Debussy at the dawn of her mature days. (Naïve)

Murcof / Vanessa Wagner STATEA

Statea is essentially about augmentation: Murcof's electronics enhancing Vanessa Wagner's piano. But the idea goes further. Statea is the result of an impromptu live performance that took place in 2010 at La Carrière De Normandoux, an old quarry in France that was turned into a contemporary arts centre. One artist's concert was taking place after the other's, so Wagner bridged the gap by playing pieces by Erik Satie. Murcof joined her, and their improvisation has since grown.
Statea revolves around minimalist piano compositions, including Aphex Twin's lyrical "Avril 14th." On the surface, that may seem like a wildcard inclusion, nestled next to Arvo Pärt and György Ligeti, but it's part of a wider narrative: augmenting the minimal music tradition itself. Some selections even pre-date minimalism's 1960s New York origins, ascribed to forefathers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Only Glass appears here, his Kafka-inspired "Metamorphosis 2" concluding Statea with one of the record's purest recordings.  

Statea is less of a music history lesson than a dialogue between its collaborators. When they perform together, Murcof and Wagner take turns leading the charge, and it's the same here. Their version of John Cage's "In A Landscape" starts out with naturalistic playing from Wagner, before Murcof begins smearing the keys like watercolours. His electro-acoustic touches are subtle at first, but become intense enough that Wagner is all but phased out by the end. "In A Landscape" is morphed into something else entirely. "Musica Ricercata No. 2" is more of a melodramatic call and response between the two players. Wagner's playing is dynamic and emotive, but Murcof's rebuttals are more stinging. It goes to show the gulf between traditional musicians, limited to an instrument's physicality, and those with technology's endless possibilities.
For all of its alluring electronics, Statea would be nothing without the clarity of Wagner's piano. It's such contrasts—classical and ambient, the past and the present, the accentuated and the ambiguous—that make the record more than the sum of its parts, sounding richer and more nuanced with every listen. As a snapshot of a performance-based collaboration, Statea is strong, but the project's full scope can only be experienced in the concert halls that birthed it. (Holly Dicker)

Vanessa Wagner RAVEL Piano Works

Vanessa Wagner is keenly interested in the music of her time and devoted to the great repertoires of the past and the present; she brings out admirably the different dimensions that exist in Ravel’s music. In seeking to understand in depth the actuality of Ravel’s works, she reveals their repercussions today. It is very tempting to see in the works of Ravel a reflection of the main trends in the music of our time: minimalism and repetitive structures (Boléro), spectralism (Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, the introduction), a fondness for early styles (Menuet antique), a tendency to
take instruments to their very limits (Scarbo), and so on. This temptation, both attractive and perilous, has the advantage of reviving the question of Ravel’s continued relevance today. What does Ravel tell us about our time? What happened to the ‘new school’, for which he prepared the arrival in anticipating the move away from Impressionism?
From the Pavane to Gaspard de la nuit, the works of Ravel’s early mature period pose the question
of his successors. Critical interpretations of Ravel are few and far between; rightly or wrongly, Debussy remains the first choice for aesthetic digressions. Commentaries on Ravel are a confused mixture of tribute and falsehood. While few have attempted to see in him the promise of future forms, none have ventured to minimise his importance.

Ravel did not aim to set an example for posterity, nor did he prescribe how his music was to be listened to. He was secretive. And he showed no ambivalence. He had faith in the power of his works and made no attempt to attract a following or create a host of epigones. Who are his heirs? His legacy is diffuse but also indelible, intangible but nevertheless clear. The peril and the strength of his example. (François Meïmoun)