Philippe LEROUX (b. 1959)
Noûs
SPP (2000) [11:52]
AMA (2009) [15:45]
Conca Reatina - Ruban de Möbius (2015-17) [14:14]
Répéter… Opposer (2018) [6:26]
Dense… Englouti (2011) [6:18]
Noûs (2019) [9:20]
Claude Delangle (soprano saxophone)
Odile Carelin-Delangle (piano)
rec. October 2019, Salle Mozart, Conservatoire de Musique à Rayonnement Départemental (CRD) d’Aulnay-sous-Bois, France.
BIS BIS-2490 SACD [65:17]
Trained at the Paris Conservatoire, Philippe Leroux has established a fine international reputation with prestigious awards and commissions, numerous performances at renowned festivals and several CD recordings. Claude and Odile Delangle have appeared on the BIS label many times and have worked with Leroux since 1991. This disc is prefaced by their anecdotal background to this recording and brief commentary on these works, summarising them thus: “Conceived with unfailing joy, like children’s dance tunes, the works recorded here show a virtuosity that does not flaunt itself. Traditional and contemporary techniques are transfigured in a single gesture… Combining intellectual rigour and spontaneity of movement, and thus uniting body and spirit, Leroux displays the totality of the saxophone, ‘beauty and the beast’, revealing the genome of its acoustic reality. Moreover, his exploration of the possibilities of the piano - the use of half pedals and the subtle use of resonance - opens up the music and testifies to his admiration for Debussy’s piano music.”
We have to be a little careful here, as this music is by no means as easy on the ear as “children’s dance tunes” and an admiration for Debussy might suggest. ‘Avant-garde’ might be too extreme a term, but there is an edge to this music that requires time from the listener to assimilate and appreciate it fully. SPP for soprano saxophone and piano opens with weightily significant, staccato repeated notes from the saxophone, and the nature of these notes is a quality that runs through the whole piece though it goes off in directions both virtuoso and darkly dramatic. AMA for solo piano is also a virtuoso work that “explores primarily the concepts of resonance and continuous transformation.” Using harmonic material that is derived from the natural harmonics of the instrument, there is a brightness in the sound to this music, which ranges over the entire range of the keyboard but also lingers Ligeti-like in its upper registers for a time in the first of two sections. The second section has some pendulum, clock-like effects that become “a constant surge that tries to express the jubilation and the proliferation of the musical material and pianistic gestures.” The title is recalled in a moment towards the end of the piece, “a discreet whistling sound, an allusion to the ama, the Japanese pearl diver women who use a special breath-holding technique to regulate their breathing.”
Conca Reatina - Ruban de Möbius for soprano saxophone “is freely inspired by the inimitable colours of the mountains and hills of the Rieti Valley (Conca Reatina) in Italy.” The title also refers to a Möbius Strip, “a melodic gesture consisting of a very rapid chain of notes”, the music also relentlessly returning the listener to a point of departure. This is a remarkably virtuosic tour-de-force, and played with sublime control by Claude Delangle. Répéter… Opposer for piano is Philippe Leroux’s tribute to Claude Debussy, in particular his Études 9 and 10, pour les notes répétées and Pour les sonorités opposées. Repetitions of notes and chords, oppositions in terms of register, technique and types of gesture are all features here, and its personal associations for the composer are telling: “reflecting an autobiographical event in the composer’s life, [the piece] is rich in both fear and hope; it is sombre and luminous, but always reflecting a fight for life.” This is followed by another piano work, Dense… Englouti, also referring to Debussy in his La cathédrale engloutie and La danse de Puck. Vast and sometimes very quiet and slow resonances contrast here with the impish rapid gesture that defines Puck to create the work that perhaps has the most immediate appeal in this programme.
The final title track, Noûs for soprano saxophone and piano, “is constructed around a primordial element heard right at the outset, a sort of mini big-bang that grows gradually larger on each appearance (of which there are nine) revisiting the same phases.” Plucking quotes from Philippe Leroux’s booklet notes goes only so far in giving some impression of what is going on here. You just have to experience these pieces for yourself to see if you find a connection. While admiring these musicians’ technical feats and the vivid musical imagination of the composer, I haven’t entirely warmed to Leroux’s idiom, though I know this is entirely down to me and is in no way a criticism. There are enough special moments to make me intrigued to hear more of his work and glad that I have been able to hear this recording. BIS’s SACD production is superbly balanced, providing air between listener and instruments that find themselves in a suitably spacious but not too resonant environment.
Dominy Clements
