Could a French woman make an international career for herself as a pianist after the Second World War by playing most of
Debussy and
Ravel, lots of
Mozart and
Haydn, and even some of
Hindemith and
Stravinsky, but no
Beethoven or
Brahms, no
Liszt, next to no
Chopin, no
Schubert, and only a smattering of
Schumann? Apparently
Monique Haas could because she made a flourishing career after the war by embracing the French moderns and the Viennese classics, but virtually avoiding the German romantics. It made a certain sense.
Haas was the quintessence of French piano playing -- her tone was clear, her technique was lucid, her colors were luminous, and her pedal was light -- and thus the ideal
Debussy --
Ravel player, and therefore, by French logic, the ideal
Mozart and
Haydn player. In this lavishly filled nine-disc set of her recordings for Deutsche Grammophon made between 1949 and 1963, the best of
Haas has been reissued together on CD for the first time. Every disc contains treasures -- the first's elegant
Mozart concerto, the second's brilliant
Haydn sonatas, the third's glittering
Schumann Fantasiestücke, the fourth's glimmering
Debussy preludes, the fifth's chastely sensuous
Ravel Valses nobles et sentimentales, the sixth's raptly radiant
Bartók Third Concerto, the seventh's superbly controlled but incredibly exciting
Ravel concertos -- but the eighth and final disc with its two works by
Haas' husband/composer Marcel Mihalovici is perhaps the most illuminating of them all. Where there was no question as to the artistic merits of
Debussy's preludes, the merits of the nearly unknown Mihalovici's Ricercari and Second Violin Sonata might have been questioned had not
Haas' completely committed and deeply affectionate performances made them seem as significant as the works of, say,
Roussel or
Honegger. Many of the recordings are in mono and the rest are early stereo, but DG's sound is consistently as clean, direct, and honest as the best of their later stereo recordings.