Impressions of France
Caroline Léonardelli
CEN Classics CEN1453
(carolineleonardelli.com)
Ottawa-based harpist Caroline Léonardelli presents an attractive selection of late 19th- and early 20th-century harp music by Paris Conservatory-educated composers. Her previous recording El Dorado received a JUNO Award nomination. Beyond technical proficiency and adherence to the French school of her teachers, it is her artistic sense of pacing and of shaping melodies within cascades of notes that help make these performances commanding. Léonardelli captures both the sense of a wonder-filled fairy tale in Marcel Grandjany’s impressionist Dans la forêt du charme et de l’enchantement, and the moods of meditation and exaltation in his Gregorian chant-inspired Rhapsodie. Grandjany’s teacher was the less-well-known Henriette Renié, who deservedly receives recognition here with the premiere recording of her challenging, aptly conceived Ballade No.2.
One of Léonardelli’s intentions for this disc is to honour the long French harp tradition, involving interaction between teachers, students, composers, performers and manufacturers. The disc opens with the Étude in E-Flat Minor by harp virtuoso Felix Godefroid, who helped the Érard Company improve the double-action harp, followed by the Pièce de concert, Op.32 by centenarian Henri Büsser (1872-1973!), written for Renié’s teacher Alphonse Hasselmans. There are also intriguing works by more familiar composers Saint-Saëns, Roussel and Ibert. I found Roussel’s ingeniously chromatic Impromptu, Op.21 especially heartfelt, and Léonardelli’s personal association with its dedicatee Lily Laskine makes this recording particularly valuable.
