July-August 2002

"Favourite Choice"

"In the last issue of Piano, le magazine (p.77), we were diminishing the scope of the transcription for piano solo of La Mer. Lydia Jardon, who records precisely this version of the music score (a world first), proves us wrong. Written in 1938 by Lucien Garban, a corrector at Durand, this transcription is not entirely faultless. Orchestra score in hand, certain details merit clarification and refinement: to cite just one example, the melody with which the cellos introduce the passage into D flat in the first movement (measure 32), performed by the left hand in the most elementary fashion, despite this being perfectly feasible. Lydia Jardon, in any event, meets the challenge. She brings alive this musical piece – among the most polished in the repertoire – with the utmost sensitivity, favouring moreover a controlled, retained expression rather than taking a gamble on conveying with just ten fingers all the lyric profusion of a full orchestra. Whereas the orchestral piece makes us feel the spray of the sea, sense the drunken roll of the swell, Jardon’s piano solo reaches out and captures the sound of the waves, in the same way the iodised tang of the sea is carried inland on the wind. Without any will, therefore, that her tour de force capsize the overall balance. Besides Une barque sur l’océan and L’Isle joyeuse, both infused with the same poetic inspiration, the pianist adds to her programme Soirs armoricains by Louis Vuillemen, again filled with coastal essences. The project stands out as much through its originality and consistency as the enthusiasm and poetry Lydia Jardon imparts. "

"5 - Excellent disc"

"AR RE-SE (“Celles-là” in Breton language, “Those ‘ladies’” in English), is a new label proposing performances recorded by women. In this first disc, Lydia Jardon has chosen “marine impressions” centred around the transcription by Lucien Garban of Debussy’s La Mer. But don’t be expecting here a literal translation of the orchestral piece. The three episodes refer to the author of Préludes and, above all, of Images. Debussy in fact composed La Mer in between these two sequences for piano. Lucien Garban’s writing thus achieves astonishing parallels with Reflets dans l’eau and Poissons d’or which, notwithstanding the aquatic nature of the subjects, evolve with quivering sensuality and sparkling harmonic refinement. Lydia Jardon analyses in detail as much as she plays these three sequences. The Steinway piano will seem hard, notably in the treble range, but the result is one of striking clarity. L’Isle joyeuse and the Ravel piece prove to be an equally penetrating analysis. Lydia Jardon has a particular feel for the most succinct changes in rhythm, introducing the full resonance of the lively passages, perhaps also without engaging in mystery or too “prepared” a sound (see Benedetti Michelangeli). The Soirs armoricains, in which the pianist powerfully narrates the composer’s text, breathes with a fine sense of space in a subtle game of discordant harmonies. The virtually hypnotic beat she announces does justice to the falsely improvised esprit of these beautiful pages."

"Magnificent. Go for it! Wonderful performance no one will be disappointed with. Diapason can assure you."

"In 1905, Debussy had already produced a four-hand transcription of La Mer for piano. Three years later, Caplet adapted his friend’s partition for two pianos. Thanks to various recordings, these two reductions are relatively well-known with the exception of the version signed Lucien Garban in 1938. Considering the breadth of the original, adapting it for two hands is a true challenge… one that Garban took on in a talented fashion. Granted, it takes a few moments to adapt to this transcription’s foreign feel in familiar territory, but Lydia Jardon – playing here a recording first – convinces and captures our attention right from the start. The program, built around the theme of the sea, is as coherent as it is original. For those already familiar with her superb Rachmaninoff (Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2), Granados (Goyescas) and Chopin (Preludes), we can recommend that you place your trust in this French pianist once again. Une barque sur l’océan, swept up in one great intake of breath, without a hint of a lull, and a L’Isle joyeuse sculptural and deliciously dreamy (with, on the other hand, an overall shading we would like to sparkle a bit more at times), stand up to comparison with the great versions. Nevertheless, beside the transcription of La Mer, it is Vuillemin’s Soirs armoricains (a first recording) which provides the primary interest of this program. Raised in Fauré, Vuillemin (1879-1929) is to Brittany what Séverac was to Languedoc. Debussy said of the author of Cerdaña that his music “felt good”: we could say the same about the Soirs armoricains. The expansive, sonorous but also very listenable playing of the pianist does the rich and contrasted pages full justice (concluding with a splendid Appareillage!)."

May 2002
Michel Le Naour.

"As the organiser of the Woman Musicians Encounters at Ushant Island since 2001, the Catalan pianist Lydia Jardon, who we have noted for her interpretation of the Goyescas of Granados (ILD – Le Monde de la musique, January 2002), has devoted this new recording to the theme of the sea. Of Debussy’s La Mer, we are familiar with the short score duet for piano (in particular, that of the Crommelynck-Claves duet), but Lydia Jardon, in a world first, has revealed the transcription for piano solo of the orchestra score, done in 1938 by Lucien Garban (1877-1959), a corrector for the publisher Durand, who was close to Ravel and familiar with this high-risk exercise. The three pieces excerpted from Soirs armoricains by Louis Vuillemin, composed beteen 1913 and 1918, show us a musician in the vein of Paul Le Flem or Paul Ladmirault, precursor of Olivier Messiaen with an array of timbres and sonorous aggregates (“Carillons dans la baie”, “Appareillage”). The more traditional pieces such as Une barque sur l’océan by Maurice Ravel and L’Ile joyeuse by Debussy round out the recording for a coherent whole. Lydia Jardon not only gives us a breath of sea mists with her superbly suggestive performance, she also reads the texts that accompany Vuillemin’s Soirs armoricains. This demanding recording, with its original selections, is all the more convincing thanks to the natural quality of the sound."