Abracadabra

A virtuosic performer and also a composer in her own right, the Swiss pianist Beatrice Berrut here performs yet another double act. Wizard-like, she conjures from the piano orchestral colours and textures with just her two hands, performing transcriptions of such orchestral showpieces as Dukas’ The Sorceror’s Apprentice and Stravinsky’s The Firebird, while simultaneously holding the listener spellbound with a story. This is very much a programme inspired by fairytales. As Berrut admits, Walt Disney was a formative influence in her childhood, and she pays tribute to his exuberant style both with the Dukas, famously used in Disney’s Fantasia, and yet more directly in her own playful yet utterly brilliant transcription of Merlin’s “Higitus Figitus” from The Sword in the Stone. But there’s also a good dose of the darker fantasies of Tim Burton, which surely informs Berrut’s compelling performance of Liszt’s macabre elaboration—rather than a straightforward transcription—of Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. Berrut includes her own Untold Tales, a suite of three pieces which retell or rather subvert the usual tropes of fairytales: the titles may appear self-explanatory, but the music casts its own spell, particularly the central piece, “Bipolar Mermaid”, whose strangely compelling mix of melancholy and magic recalls Rachmaninoff without actually imitating his style, even while there’s a clear reference to Ravel’s “Ondine” in its sparkling music towards the end.