Maurice Ravel (1873-1937)
Cantates Pour Le Prix de Rome
Alyssa (1903)
Alcyone (1902)
Myrrha (1901)
L’Aurore (1905)
La Nuit (1902)
Les Bayadères (1900)
Matinée de Provence (1903)
Tout est Lumière (1901)
Véronique Gens (soprano); Vannina Santoni (soprano); Sophie Koch (mezzo-soprano); Janina Baechle (mezzo soprano), Julien Behr (tenor); Michael Spyres (tenor); Jacques Imbrailo (baritone)
Choeur et Orchestre National des Pays de La Loire/Pascal Rophé
rec. 2021, La Cité des Congrès, Nantes, France; Centre des Congrès, Anger, France
French texts & English translations included
BIS BIS-2582 SACD [2 discs: 102]
From 1803 until as recently as 1968 the Prix de Rome was a highly prestigious and much-coveted annual award for French composers. Actually, the Prix was instituted in 1663 for artists and painters, but its scope was widened over time and composers became eligible in 1803. The principal attraction was that Prix winners could spend three years pursuing their calling while resident at the Villa Medici in Rome.
I can do no better than to quote what Gérard Condé has to say in his excellent essay in the BIS booklet. “In Maurice Ravel’s time the competition included an elimination round (a fugue and a choral piece) followed by a cantata in the form of an operatic scena. The entries were judged by a jury which generally favoured expertise and conformity more than originality and Ravel’s growing reputation as a member of the avant-garde was therefore hardly to his advantage, and may explain why he never won the coveted Premier Grand Prix.” It may be worth recording who actually won the Prix de Rome in the three years when Ravel’s cantatas were judged unworthy: 1901, André Caplet (1878-1925); 1902, Aymé Kunc (1877-1958); 1903, Raoul Laparra (1867-1943). I’ve heard of Caplet – and some of his music – but until I started doing my homework for this review the names of Kunc and Laparra were completely unknown to me: who remembers them today?
The main course, as it were, of this release consists of the three cantatas, Myrrha (1901)
Alcyone (1902) and Alyssa (1903), which BIS group together on Disc 1. However, it’s probably logical to deal first with the five short choruses, gathered together on Disc 2, since these, together with the fugues, were positioned as the first hurdle which a Prix de Rome contestant had to clear. I’m mildly surprised that BIS don’t present these five items in chronological order although, in truth, the pieces don’t show a vast amount of compositional development between one year and the next. In saying that, I don’t mean any criticism of Ravel; he knew what was necessary to satisfy the conservative judges. These five choruses are short: mostly, they play for around four or five minutes and the longest is L’Aurore, which here lasts 6:08. Listeners will find few traces of the mature Ravel; the music is, by and large, right out of the nineteenth-century French playbook. However, in one sense the choruses do hint at the mastery to come in that all show fine craftsmanship; the writing for both chorus and orchestra is assured and accomplished. You’ll find a light touch to textures evident in Tout est Lumière (1901) while La Nuit (1902) not only evidences lightness of touch but also quite a degree of charm. The choral writing in all cases is largely homophonic. The music includes brief solo passages. In the case of L’Aurore (1905) a tenor (Mathys Lagier) is involved, while the soloist in all the other items is soprano Clarisse Dalles. All the solos are well done and the Choeur et Orchestre National des Pays de La Loire provide accomplished performances.
The best of the five choruses is L’Aurore which formed part of Ravel’s entry to the 1905 competition. On that occasion he didn’t even make it past the first round and this provoked something of a scandal which Gérard Condé discusses in some detail in the booklet. Suffice to say that there was more than a hint of nepotism in the judging – no fewer than six pupils of one member of the judging panel went through into the final round! The language of L’Aurore is very conservative by Ravel’s later standards but the music is none the less attractive. Pascal Rophé leads performances of this piece and its companions which show them to best advantage.
When it comes the three cantatas, BIS have really pushed the boat out with the roster of soloists. These include Véronique Gens, who sang the title role in EMI’s 2000 recording of Alyssa, which was coupled, as here, with the other two Prix de Rome cantatas (review). The performances of those three cantatas were subsequently licenced to Decca for inclusion in their marvellous boxed set of 14 CDs, ‘Ravel. The Complete Edition’, which was issued in 2012. Interestingly, despite the use of the word ‘complete’ Decca did not include in that set any of the five choruses found on BIS’s second disc.
Myrrha (1901) was Ravel’s first foray into the final stage of the Prix de Rome. He was awarded a Second Prize and Gérard Condé relates that both Massenet and Saint-Saëns were impressed by the cantata. It has parts for three singers. Vannina Santoni sings the role of the slave, Myrrha; Michael Spyres is the king, Sardanapalus, with whom she is in love; and Jacques Imbrailo is the High Priest, Béléses. The tragic plot of the cantata encourages passionate, indeed anguished music and Ravel confronts that requirement head on. Spyres rises to the occasion: his part is a heavyweight one, with a punishing tessitura and he delivers it with expressive, heroic singing. I’ve previously heard Vannina Santoni in the recording conducted by François-Xavier Roth of
Pelléas et Mélisande - in which she was partnered in the title roles by Julian Behr (review). She impressed me then and she does so again here as a dramatic soprano who is more than capable of matching Spyres when it comes to passionate singing. Imbrailo is very imposing and dramatic as Béléses, coping well with the wide vocal compass of the role. Rophé and his orchestra really deliver the goods. Myrrha is something of a musical hot house and, as such, not at all typical of the fastidious mastery that Ravel was soon to demonstrate in his music. However, the score packs a punch and it seems to me to be fully within the tradition of late nineteenth century French grand opera. As such, it’s not hard to see why it impressed the judges, even if Ravel didn’t quite do enough in their eyes to book his ticket for Rome.
Undaunted, Ravel tried again in 1902. This time his cantata entry was Alcyone. In this, the title role is sung by Sophie Koch while Janina Baechle takes the part of her mother, Sophrona. Tenor Julien Behr has the part of the spirit of Céyx, Alycone’s husband who has been lost at sea and whose spirit reappears to her. Both Sophie Koch and Janina Baechle are mezzos who, inter alia, have sung Wagnerian mezzo roles and prior to hearing this performance that caused my eyebrows to rise a little: one doesn’t too often associate the music of Ravel with the sort of singer who can take such roles as Kundry (which Ms Koch has done). In the event, the casting proves to be just right because Ravel’s music is highly charged and, as performed here, very much in the French Wagner-influenced genre. Ms Baechle has the darker, lower-lying voice so she’s rightly cast as Sophrona. Sophie Koch makes the top of her register ring. Both ladies sing superbly. So does Julien Behr, not least in the anguished dialogue between him and Koch which forms Scene IV of the cantata. The Orchestre National des Pays de La Loire has plenty to do, including an orchestral interlude which illustrates the ship carrying Céyx being tossed around in tempestuous seas. Under Pascal Rophé’s sweepingly dramatic baton, they play excellently.
Julian Behr reappears in Alyssa, which was Ravel’s 1903 cantata. In this he takes the role of Braïzyl while Véronique Gens is the fairy Alyssa, who loves him. Jacques Imbrailo is The Bard. This is another work in which we find Ravel writing in the tradition of French Grand Opera, most notably in the passionate exchanges between Alyssa and Braïzyl which form Scene II. This passage in the work offers a prime example of the super singing and orchestral playing that distinguishes this performance. Ravel’s music, here and elsewhere in the cantata, may not be characteristic of what we’ve come to recognise as the Ravelian voice but it seems to me that it’s an effective response to the text. Jacques Imbrailo takes part in the last two scenes of the cantata and he is a strong vocal presence.
It’s true to say that none of these three cantatas represent the mature voice of Ravel. On the other hand, there’s no way that he could have – or would have wanted to – set any of these libretti in his maturity. The libretti served their purpose for him at the time and whilst the music may be uncharacteristic of his maturity, there can be no doubt that in all three scores the young composer demonstrates great assurance in writing on a big scale both for voices and orchestra. Pascal Rophé leads performances that put the best possible case for all three scores.
The music on both discs is very interesting to hear – the cantatas probably more so than the choruses. Ravel enthusiasts who have not heard the cantatas will find these three full-blooded performances show them to best advantage: the solo singing is uniformly superb and the orchestral contribution is also distinguished. I believe that the choruses have been recorded once before, on a Marco Polo disc in the 1990s, but, whilst that recording can still be streamed or download, I think, I’m not sure it’s available any longer in disc form. In any event, these new performances would be hard to beat.
The BIS recordings are terrific an have plenty of presence and impact – I listened to the stereo layer of these SACDs. It’s good to hear a well-judged balance between voices and orchestra. The documentation is first-rate, as one needs with unfamiliar repertoire such as this. Gérard Condé’s booklet essay is comprehensive and all the texts are provided. In the cantatas the full libretto of each one is printed which means that you also get the ‘stage directions’. That’s only a small detail but it’s a telling one because it enables the listener to get a full sense of the action.
These unfamiliar early Ravel works are shown in the best possible light on these SACDs.
John Quinn
