It seems that EMI Music
France are re-visiting their rich, yet
long-neglected recorded archives, and
are making some of their pioneering
recordings from the 1950s available
again, through this bargain-priced series
Les rarissimes de ...
All these performances,
recorded in the mid-1950s, have never
been re-issued in CD format before.
Several works, however, such as the
Flute Concerto and the two Trumpet Concertos,
have become quite well-known and popular.
All the other pieces have remained unjustly
neglected, although – again – some of
them have re-appeared in more recent
discs.
Both the delightful
Trumpet Concertino and
the superb Trumpet Concerto No.2
have been consistently championed by
many trumpet virtuosos. Delmotte, however,
was the first of them, followed by Maurice
André who recorded them with
the composer conducting again (Erato,
first as a single LP with the First
Cello Concerto on Side B, re-issued
as part of a boxed set including a number
of concertos by Jolivet [I wish that
this set was – at long last – re-issued
in CD format]), by Wynton Marsalis and
Jouko Harjanne, to name but a few that
come to mind. (For the anecdote’s sake,
you will be delightfully surprised to
read that the piano part in the Trumpet
Concertino is played by Serge
Baudo.)
Similarly, Jean-Pierre
Rampal became the foremost exponent
of Jolivet’s flute music; and he too
recorded the two Flute Concertos with
the composer (Erato again). In the meantime,
many other flautists championed these
pieces; but Dufrêne was the first
to play Jolivet’s First Flute Concerto
and the first to record it with the
composer.
Jolivet really enjoyed
composing concertos. He wrote twelve
of them throughout his composing career
: two for flute (1949 and 1965), two
for trumpet (1948 and 1954), two for
cello (1962 and 1966) and one each for
ondes Martenot (1947), piano (1949/50),
harp (1952), percussion (1958) and violin
(1972). The latter is the only one that
has never been recorded at the time
of writing. To these twelve concertos,
I would add the splendid Songe
à nouveau rêvé
(1970) for soprano and orchestra, actually
another concerto in all but name (Erato’s
magnificent recording should be re-issued
as soon as possible). Besides the completely
neglected Violin Concerto, which I have
never heard, the Piano Concerto
has not so far been particularly well
served either by performers or by recording
companies. Lucette Descaves, who gave
the first performance in 1951 in Strasbourg
with the composer conducting, recorded
this fairly recent piece quickly after
several performances. Some time later,
Philippe Entremont, who gave the American
first performance in New York in 1953,
recorded it for CBS (as it was then
known) with Jolivet conducting the Orchestre
de la Société du Conservatoire
(CBS S 75600, never re-issued, as far
as I am aware). There exists a live
recording of the Piano Concerto by Herman
D. Koppel (on Danacord, if I am not
mistaken). The Piano Concerto
was written on a commission from the
Radiodiffusion Française that
requested works inspired, in one way
or another, by the music of the French
overseas dominions. (For that occasion,
Raymond Loucheur composed his Rhapsodie
malgache that was once fairly
popular.) The concerto was sketched
as Equatoriales (a rather Varèse-like
title), the first movement evoking Africa,
the second Asia and the third Polynesia,
without being overtly programmatic.
Though the actual musical content was
retained, the composer dropped the exotic
title and replaced it by the more abstract
Concerto. This often vehement,
frantic work displays a formidable rhythmic
energy in the outer movements framing
a beautiful, mysteriously atmospheric
central movement. It is one of Jolivet’s
works in which debts to his teacher
Edgar Varèse are most evident.
The first performance caused quite a
stir and a notorious scandal, that –
for the composer’s wife – ended at the
local police station. A repeat performance
several days later in Paris was warmly
acclaimed. Spiritus ubi vult spirat!
Nevertheless, the Piano Concerto has
since remained the Ugly Duckling amongst
Jolivet’s concertos, and it is now high
time that a pianist of high calibre
should consider it again.
The short Andante
for Strings (1935) is actually
the version for strings of the slow
movement of Jolivet’s only string quartet.
This beautifully moving work fared quite
well, although it never achieved the
same popularity as, say, Barber’s ubiquitous
Adagio.
The genesis of Suite
française of 1957 is
worth re-telling. It was in fact written
for a film directed by Edouard Logereau,
planned as a travelogue through present-day
France. Thus, the first movement evokes
the Alps, the Rhone Valley and the Camargue.
In the second movement, Brittany; the
third the North and the Channel Coast;
the concluding movement mixed landscapes
from various French regions and some
modern achievements, such as a nuclear
power station, highways, jet planes,
etc. But, and this is a big BUT, the
film was shot to the music which
was thus written first. The suite is
Jolivet at his most accessible.
Rapsodie à
7 was actually written for the
same instrumental set-up as Stravinsky’s
L’Histoire du Soldat,
albeit with a more important percussion
part (Varèse’s heritage again).
Here is vintage Jolivet, full of arresting
ideas and powerful rhythms. Again, it
has been regularly ignored by performers,
although it was recorded in 1977 by
Les Solistes de Marseilles conducted
by Devy Erlih (Lyrinx 7707-008/9, not
re-issued so far to the best of my knowledge).
The extraordinary Suite
delphique of 1943 was originally
written as incidental music to an adaptation
of Iphigenia in Tauris by Euripides
staged by the Comédie Française
of which Jolivet was then musical director.
It is scored for twelve players: seven
winds, timpani, two percussionists,
harp and ondes Martenot; and mostly
based on Greek modes. This splendid
score abounds with many imaginative
instrumental touches, and is remarkably
evocative, although at that time Jolivet
had never visited Greece.
Finally, Epithalame,
another Ugly Duckling in Jolivet’s output,
has long been neglected, although there
now exists a new recording (reviewed
here by Gary Higginson last month).
The front page of the score bears a
dedication A ma femme, pour nos vingt
ans de mariage. Epithalame,
for vocal orchestra in twelve parts
(sic), sets words written by the composer
in which he uses some invented words
and onomatopoeia, the latter often functioning
as percussive effects or – at times
– imitating string pizzicati.
This is a quite complex score that does
not yield its secrets easily. I am undecided
about it; and I still do not know whether
I like it or not. However, it is an
impressive achievement and, no doubt,
one of Jolivet’s most personal utterances
which has still to be given its due.
Well, now, what about
the recordings and performances? First,
and most importantly, one has to bear
in mind that they were made nearly fifty
years ago. These recordings by Columbia
in France were not always without fault;
but they have been superbly transferred
here so that the actual sound is still
quite good. It is a bit on the dry side
- one of the characteristics of these
French recordings. The important thing,
however, about the present re-issues
is the quality of the performances,
full of excitement at the discovery
of works that were then quite new. Recent
recordings of the trumpet concertos
or of Epithalame are more
brilliantly recorded and supremely performed.
However these early performances, conducted
either by the composer or that arch-champion
of modern music Ernest Bour with soloists
that have long been associated with
these works, have an unmistakable flavour
of authenticity and enthusiastic commitment.
Not to be missed.
Hubert Culot
Lucette Descaves (piano)d; Fernand
Dufrêne (flute)a; Marcel Delmotte
(trumpet)bc; Ginette Martenot (ondes
martenot)g; Orchestre National de la
Radiodiffusion Françaiseab;
Orchestre du Théâtre des Champs Elyséescde;
Orchestre de l’Association des Concerts Colonnef;
Ensemble ‘Madrigal’ de la Radiodiffusion Françaiseh;
Ernest Bourcde, André Jolivetabfgh
