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INTERNATIONAL RECORD REVIEW
October 2007

Katia and Marielle Labèque are the ‘onlie begetters’ of KML Recordings. They are not the first artists formerly contracted to one of the big multinational labels – Philips in their case – who have become disillusioned and branched out on their own. I doubt if they will be the last, either.
After a very successful all-Ravel disc (reviewed in June), here they are again with Stravinsky’s music for two pianos, one piano, four hands and a few solos, coupled with Debussy’s En blanc et
noir, whose third movement, Scherzando, is dedicated ‘à mon ami Igor Stravinsky’ – it’s fascinating to hear two of the twentieth century’s greatest and most individual composers, rubbing shoulders, as it were, in such a carefully devised programme. The Labèque sisters begin boldly with
the biggest challenge, the Concerto for two pianos, which Stravinsky wrote between 1931 and 1935 as a performing vehicle for himself and his son, and which he later declared to be his favourite among his instrumental works.

If the remaining works by the Russian composer are essentially miniatures – Three and Five Easy Pieces for piano four hands (1915/1918), Ragtime (1918), a selection from Les cinq doigt (1921), a Valse des fleurs for piano four hands (1918) and a Tango for two pianos (1940) arranged by Victor Babin – the Debussy suite supplies sufficient ballast for a reasonably well-filled disc. Apart from the high quality of the playing – a given with these players in this repertoire – this disc represents, according to the booklet note, ‘a point of departure for a wider project, involving young artists working with video’. On a ‘bonus’ disc, a DVD, most of the programme – the two solo items and Valse des fleurs are omitted – serves as background music to, or inspiration for, art videos by Tal Rosner, filmed at IRCAM in Paris, which purport to capture ‘the rhythm and plasticity of the two composers and refer to the notions of scansion, serial pattern and sound transformation.

By working on urban landscape, on architectural geometries and processing them through mirror or colorize effects, Rosner creates a digital mutation of figurative images.

The Labèques have matured exponentially as artists since they were the hottest pianistic glamour girls on PolyGram/Universal’s books in the 1980s – an irony that won’t be lost on collectors who despair of the big companies today – and it would be hard to imagine a more technically brilliant account of the Stravinsky Concerto or more lustrous, luminously coloured Debussy.

Hearing two such disparate works as the Concerto and En blanc et noir in such close proximity undoubtedly affects the way you hear the music and the way the Labèques play it: the Debussyian transparency of Stravinsky’s Notturno and Variations gives way to more emphatically rhythmical accounts of the outer movements of Debussy’s suite. Both sisters revel in the witty pastiche of the miniatures. In their solos, Marielle’s Ragtime is louchely jazzy, while Katia relishes the perky humour of three little pieces from The five fingers. All lovers of this repertoire will want to acquire this disc, which can be heartily recommended.

Hugh Canning