"....for this reviewer, the revelation of the evening was the versatile Dan Tepfer, who gave such a thoughtful and illuminating interpretation of the Ravel concerto. His own composition, the exquisite and heartbreaking song cycle of the Virginie Sampeur poems, is sure to find a very appreciative audience."
Excerpts from review by Dominique Jackson
For UK Jazz News
Dan Tepfer, Thomas Enhco and Cécile McLorin Salvant in "A French Salon" (Photo Credit: Douglas Marriner)
"[Cécile McLorin Salvant's] rapport with fellow Francophone, Paris-born, American jazz pianist Dan Tepfer was patent and together they enjoyed poking gentle fun at their French friends, with a number of singularly Gallic chansons, including Poulenc’s setting of Apollinaire’s ‘Hôtel’ – “Je ne veux pas travailler, je veux fumer! ”.
Tepfer then introduced his friend, and fellow Parisian pianist, Thomas Enhco, and together they embarked upon an energetic, and pleasingly protracted, series of “Improvisations on the French Song Book”. The pair, who apparently go rock climbing and kite-surfing together, were clearly enjoying their duel on two Steinways, and a number of very familiar melodies emerged regularly if fleetingly from their inspired and very instinctive extemporization."
"The energy stepped up significantly in the second half.... The affable Gavin Sutherland announced the world première of a song cycle, based on the three extant poems of Haïtian writer, Virginie Sampeur (1839-1919), written by Dan Tepfer, especially for Cécile.
From the opening urgent pizzicato to waves of soaring sonorities, the string section of the peerless Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra accompanied these three pieces, which all examined the vagaries of love, in true Francophone tradition, now lamenting ‘douleur sans mesure’ and ‘le deuil’, only to later proclaim murderous defiance: “Si vous étiez mort….”
Sutherland introduced Ravel’s G major Piano Concerto (1931) as ‘a jolly romp’ with its many echoes of the jazz and the spirituals that Ravel heard during his lengthy 1928 tour of America and of the Basque folk themes which were his original inspiration. In the hands of the dexterous Dan Tepfer, the three compact movements proved themselves to be significantly ahead of their time and the compressed, almost martial, final Presto brought the initially restrained Grange audience to its feet for the first time."
Read UK Jazz review in full here.
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