Pianist Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont has chosen, for the release of his first recording, to adopt an unusual business model and an altruistic approach concerning the direct-to-consumer distribution of his new CD. It's a courageous undertaking when you consider the present level of market saturation, and the fact that by making his recording freely available to anyone who wishes to download it, has the potential to expose his technique and interpretation to a higher number of critical ears. And he's chosen to launch his recording career performing some rather difficult material. But when you play this well, what's there to worry about.

All three works presented on this recording, the On an overgrown path and In the mists by Leos Janácek, and more so the Gaspard de la nuit by Maurice Ravel, are piano pieces that transcend the instrument, that negate their technical and theoretical construct, and are borne out of pure imagination and therefore need to be expressed as pure imagination. The interpreter needs to look beyond the score and pare the music down to its essence and expose its catalyst. And that is precisely what Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont achieves in this, his own private production. The miniature snapshots of life that constitute the Janácek, sort of like Grieg's Lyric Pieces, amuse by their honest simplicity of emotion, and are perceived and performed as such. The new harmonic explorations of In the mists come well to the fore in this recording. Still considered one of the most technically demanding works ever written for piano, Gaspard de la nuit would suffer badly from a purely technical approach. This music feeds on its emotional impetus and can easily die when starved of this stimulus. Dablemont does such a wonderful job of this, that in Le gibet for example, the instrument fades away and you are bewitched by the music alone.

For more detailed information on this project and personal views on the music, please visit Dablemont's website by clicking here. The future of classical music is obviously in good hands.

Jean-Yves Duperron - August 2012