Julien Libeer / Les Metamorphoses / Raphael Feye

Lignes Paralleles Julien Libeer / Les Metamorphoses / Raphael Feye

On his second release for Evil Penguin, Belgian piano prodigy Julien Libeer teams up with the new ensemble Les Métamorphoses to contrast authentic and neo guises of 18th century music. The true classicists are featured on this disc with unusually restrained work: Haydn's Passion Symphony no. 49 is broodingly solemn, Mozart's last piano concerto no. 27 deceptively intimate.

These repertoire icons are coupled to Dino Lipatti's crystalline Concertino in the Classical Style (1936), which sheds neo-classical light on the vintage idiom. When Lipatti (1917-1950) died at the age of 33, he was already a piano legend: Poulenc found "divine spirituality" in his playing, and Enescu believed his godchild was "born with a star above his head". The Concertino is audibly indebted to Bach and Scarlatti, but there are dashes of Stravinsky, as well as a foretaste of Bela Bartók's language.

Libeer's fusion of older and newer worlds is not limited to the programme of this record. Although Les Métamorphoses typically play on modern instruments (albeit with the greatest possible respect for the respective sonorities of different eras), they engaged natural horns and wooden transverse flutes for period colour and crisp.

The solo piano also represents the best of both worlds: the Concert grand with parallel strings (which Chris Maene originally built for Daniel Barenboim) combines pianoforte possibilities - clearly distinguishable voices and colour across registers - with the technical advantages and playing comfort of a modern Steinway. The result, says Julien Libeer, is an instrument "which speaks as beautifully as it sings".