Stephen Pritchard 

Dubois: Piano Concertos – review

Dubois's beautifully crafted piano writing reaches new heights in the hands of Cédric Tiberghien, writes Stephen Pritchard
  
  


Théodore Dubois (1837-1924) never enjoyed great success in his lifetime, despite rising to the directorship of the Paris Conservatoire. His music – beautifully crafted, highly tuneful and harmonically daring – gains a new stature here in the mercurial hands of Cédric Tiberghien and Andrew Manze. The robust, single-movement 1876 Concerto-capriccioso has more than a dash of Mendelssohn, while the 1898 second piano concerto feels like an imaginative distillation of Grieg, Chopin, Liszt and Saint-Saëns. It's not until we hear the Suite for piano and string orchestra, a wonderfully sprightly piece from 1917, that the true voice of Dubois really comes through – though by then he was 80 years old.

 

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