It may be rash to claim that the French pianist Monique Haas (1909-1987) never made a bad recording, but you won’t find one among her complete DG sessions. Dating from the late 1940s up to 1965, the recordings have been transferred from scratch, and they sound remarkably well for their respective vintages. The repertoire is diverse and unhackneyed, ranging from Mozart piano duets (with Heinz Schröter) and K. 449 and K. 488 concertos, rare Haydn gems (the E-flat Arietta with Variations and the Fantasia in C major), and the Stravinsky Capriccio, to Hindemith’s Concert Music for piano, brass and harps (with the composer conducting), and a substantial sonata by Marcel Mihalovici (the pianist’s husband) featuring violinist Max Rostal.
Clear textures, pinpoint articulation, directness, and energy without excess are just a few of Haas’ distinguishing traits, be it her vivacious Haydn F major (Hob XVI:23) and E-flat major (Hob XVI:52) sonatas, or her firmly etched Debussy Preludes and Etudes. Haas’ 1954 Bartók Third Concerto with Ferenc Fricsay is in no way inferior to the conductor’s better known stereo remake with Geza Anda, while David Hurwitz rightly praised her solo and concerted Ravel via an earlier DG Originals reissue. Yet the Schumann Concerto (a wonderful 1951 collaboration with Jochum and the Berlin Philharmonic) and Fantasiestücke demonstrate that Haas could broaden her tone and infuse subjective rhetoric when she put her mind to it.
For completeness’ sake, DG even includes three 1949 “test” recordings containing Debussy’s Etude pour les huit doigts, La fille aux cheveux de lin, and the Toccata from Pour le piano. Needless to say, Haas passed the audition! In short, this is one of the rare releases to offer both collector’s cachet and unqualified listening pleasure.
