The French pianist Vincent Larderet studied with Carlos Cebro and Bruno Leonardo Gelber and has recorded works by Debussy, Ravel, Scriabin and Brahms. This album is the first of a projected four of Ravel’s complete piano works, based in part on the marked scores of pianist Vlado Perlemuter, who studied these pieces with Ravel. Throughout, Larderet displays a keen intelligence and proficient technique. The most satisfying interpretations are of the Valses nobles et sentimentales and the Pavane, which reveal fine attention to detail, pacing and balances.

However, I have some reservations about Miroirs, which I have performed often and studied with Perlemuter. The night moths of ‘Noctuelles’ are not as fleet and delicate as they should be. The tone is quite dry and the phrasing overly pronounced, almost sounding academic. The birds of ‘Oiseaux tristes’ are suitably sad and I especially like the colourism of the opening and closing pages. The waves in ‘Une barque sur l’océan’ are well controlled but the sforzandos are greatly overdone, outside the context of the prevailing soft dynamics. The difficult passage from bars 29‑37 sounds rather laboured and the highest notes in the right-hand ostinato figures in bars 82‑102 are curiously stressed. ‘Alborada del gracioso’ features admirably fast repeated notes but it is quite heavy and loud where it shouldn’t be. A sense of playfulness is missing and the middle section could be played more expressif en récit, as Ravel requests. The closing piece, ‘La vallée des cloches’, is similarly short on evocation and includes wrong notes and over-projection of the beautiful melody in the middle section.

Jeux d’eau begins and ends in a lovely, fluid manner but in between it seems cautious and, once again, includes overly pronounced phrasing. The outer movements of the Sonatine are a bit under tempo and the main themes are sometimes out of balance with the accompaniment.

My reference recordings for all of this repertoire are by Perlemuter, Alexandre Tharaud and Bertrand Chamayou. Despite some fine playing and moments of lovely colourism, it has to be said this cycle faces formidable competition.

Ravel ‘The Complete Works For Solo Piano, Vol 1’

Jeux d’eau. Miroirs. Pavane pour une infante défunte. Sonatine. Valses nobles et sentimentales

Vincent Larderet pf

Avie AV2623

This review originally appeared in the Summer 2024 issue of International Piano. Never miss an issue – subscribe today