Recorded in 1960 on a big un-tuned piano during a recital performed in the great room of the Ettlingen baroque palace (Baden-Württemberg in Germany), this priceless document is consistent with the reputation of Samson François as an “enfant terrible, eccentric and extravagant” as described in the introduction text. Born in Germany, as a result of his father’s numerous peregrinations, the French pianist burnt his life with passion, but “the flames still keep us warm”, as Jean Roy – one of his biographers – elegantly put it.
Starting sensibly with two of Mendelssohn’s Songs without words, this fragment of the recital (only partly preserved) goes on with a raging interpretation of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, as if Samson the terrible was unleashing his wrath on the piano, and then comes the miracle of the Marche funèbre, whose central movement is played with ineffable and comforting tenderness, before the hallucination of the ever so brief Finale, inhabited by menacing ghosts.
“I have the deepest love for music”, Samson François explained, “quite simply, without question””. One would however need his powerful, precise instinct to tackle Debussy’s three Préludes, a blend of fantasy and pure poetry. As for Prokofiev’s famous Piano Sonata No. 7, it was one of Samson François’ main showpieces. This “war sonata” holds in its core a wonderful nocturne eminently reminiscent of one of François’ poems: “Minuit sonne ! et voici que la magie s’éveille, cette vapeur qui s’étire, souple et envahissante, ce peuple obscur qui soudain existe et, là-bas, la réalité des murs, du pauvre sommeil humain qui s’estompe, se retire, abstraite…” (Midnight rings! and here comes the magic awakening, the vapour spreading, supple and pervasive, this obscure people that suddenly exists, and over there, the abstract reality of the walls, of the sad human sleep that fades away, recedes...). © François Hudry/Qobuz