Gioachino Rossini's Pêchés de Vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) generally show up as encores and the like. But playing them as a complete set, as German pianist Stefan Irmer is doing, shows that there's a good deal more than just salon humor in these little works. Rossini reveals himself as a late-life experimentalist, intrigued by the non-Western sounds that were beginning to become known in Paris -- sample here the Petite polka chinoise (Little Chinese Polka) and the Plein-chant chinois (a virtually untranslatable pun, which ...
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Gioachino Rossini's Pêchés de Vieillesse (Sins of Old Age) generally show up as encores and the like. But playing them as a complete set, as German pianist Stefan Irmer is doing, shows that there's a good deal more than just salon humor in these little works. Rossini reveals himself as a late-life experimentalist, intrigued by the non-Western sounds that were beginning to become known in Paris -- sample here the Petite polka chinoise (Little Chinese Polka) and the Plein-chant chinois (a virtually untranslatable pun, which is just as well since the booklet translates Rossini's titles from French into German only). The titles are humorous indeed, with an anarchic, Satie-like streak (Valse anti-dansante), and music explores little harmonic byways left neglected as Romantic music underwent its headlong development -- the language runs from Beethoven to Chopin, but has a quirkiness and a melodic genius that is pure Rossini. Several sets of the Pêchés de Vieillesse are underway; Irmer's is distinguished by...
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