On his Naïve debut, French pianist Ismaël Margain programs a recital juxtaposing the familiar and unfamiliar, focusing on the elements binding them together. Using impromptus by Frédéric Chopin and Gabriel Fauré, Margain betters a similar program recently recorded by the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson when he attempted the same type of project using Claude Debussy and Jean-Philippe Rameau on Debussy • Rameau (Deutsche Grammophon, 2020). The temporal and spiritual distances between Margain's composers pair much cozier than those shared between Ólafsson.
The familiar and unfamiliar are the piano music of Chopin and Fauré, respectively. Chopin's piano music has been incorporated into the West's cultural DNA, while Fauré's remains present but elusive. The impromptu (roughly meaning "offhand") is a free-form musical composition with the character of improvisation as if prompted for display. This form was a vehicle for both composers, with Chopin composing four and Fauré six. Margain has organized his program to orbit like tonalities. Margain added balance to his program by alternating the composers and adding from Chopin, his Etude pp. 25 no. 2 in F minor, Berceuse op. 57 and the Fantaisie-Impromptu C sharp minor, Op. posth. 66, WN 46, allowing Fauré an additional entry with his Improvisation op. 84 no. 5 to close the recital properly. Margain closes the disc with an improvisation of his own (as is typical of his recitals). His improvisation recalls those of jazz and classical pianist, Keith Jarrett. Margain's pianism is warmly fluid with drama and anticipation. His Chopin is scintillating when paired with Fauré, whose Late Romantic compositions are less extroverted.