Now celebrating a notable birthday, Perlemuter was just 18 when in 1922 Faure completed his very last work for solo piano, the Nocturne No. 13 in B minor chosen to end this recital. The booklet tells us that Perlemuter recalls playing several of the works included to the composer himself, adding wistfully ''he was very complimentary, but I don't know how much that means, for he had become quite deaf by then and could hardly hear me''. So there can be few people on the platform today with longer or closer ties with this music.
When making the recording in 1982 Perlemuter was already 78, just a year younger than Faure himself when he died. But you would never guess it from the Theme et variations in C sharp minor, for me the outstanding performance on the disc for its firm outlines, its strong sense of direction and the way each potently characterized variation is made part of a continuous, shapely whole. I have never been more conscious of the work's kinship with Schumann's Etudes symphoniques in the same key, except that whereas Schumann's home-coming is exuberant Faure's is almost benedictory—and how movingly Perlemuter plays it.
The remaining pieces include such well-known favourites as the Second Impromptu and Sixth Nocturne as well as offering glimpses of the more elusive composer of later years. Now and again you might wish for more expansive climaxes, or more translucent texture, or a subtler balance between melody and busy accompanying figuration. But even if a few details are perhaps less than fully savoured, the unaffected simplicity of this artist's approach has an eloquence all its own. The recording itself is warm albeit somewhat lack-lustre in tone-quality.'