Sins of Old Age

0,0350364 The final years of Rossini’s life were spent in Paris, and it was here that all of his piano music was composed. The Péchés de Vieillesse, or ‘Sins of Old Age’, were written between 1857 and 1868, and consist of around 180 vocal and solo piano works. While it’s fair to say that only Rossini enthusiasts may wish to own a complete recording of these pieces, a selection such as that found on the current disc can be recommended to every listener. This is not ‘slight’ music; rather, it is always intelligent, often witty, pleasingly melodic, sometimes harmonically interesting, and also more challenging pianistically than one might imagine (with, for example, the final part of the canzonetta Ia Venitienne employing third-interval glissandi!). What’s more, one will not often hear this music played better than by Stefan Irmer: his technique is strong, allowing him to enjoy the frequent comic turns of the music – none of which he misses.

Perhaps a good place to start is with the title, Sins of old age. After listening to the current disc – and indeed to the previous releases in Irmer’s series - the relevance becomes apparent. The sins here seem to be delightful, and usually humorous, transgressions from the conventions of the musical establishment, with the listener’s expectations frequently being built up and then demolished. Rossini even annotates the score with additional jokes for the performer to read as he plays. For the elderly composer to have shunned the ‘elder statesman’ stereotype and write such vibrant and refreshing music makes it difficult for the listener not to break into smiles during almost every piece.

As always, Irmer provides excellent notes to accompany his recording, and discusses many of the pieces in some detail. In spite of the rather specific descriptive titles that many of the works are given by the composer, I am not convinced that all of the pieces are as programmatic and descriptive as Irmer sometimes implies. Rather than attempting to ‘tell a story’ or ‘paint a picture’, Rossini seems to me to use the subject of each title as a more general source of inspiration.

Irmer’s choice of a 1901 Steinway for these recordings feels just right for the music, and its warm sound is well-captured by MDG – better, in fact, than on some of the previous releases from this series. Listeners who have heard some of these earlier releases can be assured that the present CD is easily up to the usual high standards; those new to the series, or indeed to the Péchés de Vieillesse, would do very well to start here.