November 28, 2006 - The New York Times - By Bernard Holland
The harp is both relatively young and very old. Versions inhabited
ancient Greece and the Bible, but its life as a public concert
instrument began with a French patent early in the 19th century.
With a clever set of pedals and rearranged strings, Sébastienérard’s
invention meant that with minimum complication all the notes of any
tempered scale were available.
Another Frenchman, Emmanuel Ceysson, pursued the instrument's
fortunes at Zankel Hall on Monday night. At 22, he is the new
principal harpist at the Paris Opera. He is also last year's winner at
the annual auditions of Young Concert Artists, which put on this
recital.
France's proprietary interest in the harp was reflected in a program
that was either French, called itself French or aspired to be French.
Debussy and Ravel made major (perhaps the only major)
contributions to the repertory in general, but lesser talents like Marcel
Gradjany, Henriette Renié and Marius Constant, all on this program,
have been true to the instrument.
Fauré adored the harp. His rolling, arpeggionic style, represented here
by "Une Châtelaine en sa Tour," is so a part of the instrument's
nature that one can fancy all his music as being conceived with the
harp in mind, then later transcribed for piano, orchestra, voice or
whatever. Ambiguity may be the attractant: the pinpoint attacks of
plucked strings and yet the cloudy, Monet-like resonances that trail
after every passage.
Mr. Ceysson began with Bach's B-minor French Suite, originally for
keyboard, which is French in the way a Vienna sausage is Viennese.
Beautifully executed, it did not always make it through the
enveloping echoes of the harp, especially in quicker movements.
If the Gradjany Rhapsody for Harp and String Quartet and the Renié "Ballade Fantastique"
were lyrical old-guard effusions, Mr. Constant's "Harpalycé" turned aggressive,
with big contrasts, theatrical surges and imitations of human speech.
There was also a new piece by the young American Benjamin C. S.
Boyle. His "Suite Sylvanesque" — modest, reasonably graceful and
speaking in a received language — yearns mightily for
late-19th-century France and could settle there without disturbing
the landscape at all. Ravel's "Introduction and Allegro" came at the
end. It may not be as profound as Debussy's more softly spoken
"Sacred and Profane Dances," but it is perhaps more delicious.
Curvaceous, cuddlesome and irresistibly charming, the "Introduction
and Allegro" is something like the Marilyn Monroe of the
classical-music repertory.
Mr. Ceysson is an excellent player and was joined by Marya Martin,
flutist; Jose Franch-Ballester, clarinetist; and the Jupiter String
Quartet.
