I read in a concert programme once that "nobody does Spanish music
better than the French". This disc will remind you that
that's true, but in a whole new way. Just as they did with
their marvellous Stravinsky disc of 2014, period band Les
Siècles have presented a programme of French music about Spain, played on
period instruments from turn of the century Paris. Does it make a
differences? You bet it does. Just listen to the way
España
leaps out of your speakers, the winds glimmering in the light and the
strings providing a wonderful bed of support that doesn't just
cushion the sound but propels it along excitingly. The brass are
perhaps the most exciting and distinctive of all: listen to the fanfares at
the 5-minute mark: they don't sound quite as clear as you'd
expect from a contemporary orchestra, but the effect is marvellous in its
own way.
The ballet music from
Le Cid is a nice treat too, and it's
carried every bit as successfully. Each number purports to be a
character dance from a different region of Spain, and that gives plenty of
opportunities for effects and displays, not to mention the regular
orchestral contributions, such as the knockout wind solos in the
Madrilène. I also found the tutti passages to be particularly
crisp on-the-ear, something that also benefits Ravel's
Alborada, but the most impressive here is the difference made by
the winds, which sound sensational, and not just in the central section -
though certainly there. The sound is less silky and sensuous than you might
be used to, but it's also more dramatic and dynamic, with more
pictorial flair than you might expect. It helps, too, that Roth
directs this music with such incomparable
élan and a palpable sense
of bounce throughout.
That same
élan leads to a brilliant performance of
Ibéria, and the opening walk through the streets has the colour of
Spain but also the elegance of a Parisian
flâneur, a heady mix.
There is busyness aplenty in Roth's reading, but also time to
enj
oy the view, and yet again it's
the winds that really make the running. Listen to the way the clarinet
skirls its way through the opening theme, but then is transformed into
something much darker and more sultry later in the movement. The
brass, too, have a beautifully relaxed swagger, and the percussion add not
just colour but also flair. That instrumental colour makes the sensual
atmosphere of "Les parfums de la nuit" even more sultry — those
chromatic wind scales and icy violin notes can seldom have sounded more
overtly hedonistic. I loved the way the party atmosphere of the last
movement emerges only slowly, the distant bells brilliantly suggestive and
magically recorded. When it does emerge into the full glow of
daylight, the sound is bright, clear and clean. Furthermore,
with the period musicians of Les Siècles, Debussy's deconstruction of
the orchestral sound and the highlighting of individual instruments can
seldom have sounded more exciting and more revelatory.
This is, in short, a hit. It's a good idea for a disc and
it's done so brilliantly that it will appeal to newcomers as well as
avowed Francophiles. Incidentally, the recordings are live, and
applause is kept in, but beyond that audience noise is negligible: they must
have been wowed into silence.
Simon Thompson
Previous reviews:
Dan Morgan and
John Quinn
