In the Age of Debussy
Lili BOULANGER (1893-1918)
D’un matin de printemps (1917/1918) [4:43]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Bilitis for flute (1914) [14:17]
Paul DUKAS (1865-1935)
La Plainte, au loin, du Faune… (1920) [4:07]
Claude DEBUSSY
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune L86a (1894) [8:52] (arr. for flute by Gustave Samazeuilh)
André CAPLET (1878-1925)
Deux petites pièces (1897) [7:03]
Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924)
Sonata for violin No. 1 Op. 13 (1875) [24:46]
Ransom Wilson (flute), François Dumont (piano)
rec. Wyastone Leys, Monmouth, UK, 21-23 March 2019
NIMBUS NI6407 [64:50]
This remarkable disc of French music for flute and piano presents original works and arrangements.
Lili Boulanger’s interesting work looks forward to the musical style of ‘Les Six’ but also takes a backward glance towards Debussy. D’un matin de printemps, originally conceived for violin and piano, dates from the spring of 1917. Arrangements for piano trio and the present version followed immediately afterwards. In the last weeks of her life, she transcribed it for full orchestra. This was her final musical offering. D’un matin de printemps is a fresh and vibrant work. It evokes the springtime in a manner that both Debussy and Francis Poulenc would have approved of.
Paul Dukas is mostly known for his The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1897), brought to a vivid life of its own in Walt Disney’s 1940 Fantasia. Dukas’s modest catalogue includes an excellent Symphony, the opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue, the ballet La Peri, and a superb piano sonata. His musical style straddles romanticism and modernism, and sometimes touches on impressionism. La Plainte, au loin, du Faune was written for inclusion in the dedicatory Tombeau de Claude Debussy, a volume commissioned in 1920 by Henry Prunières, director of the Revue Musicale. (It featured contributions from the great and good of contemporary European music, including Albert Roussel, Maurice Ravel, Eugene Goossens, Manuel de Falla and Igor Stravinsky). Dukas’s piece incorporates quotations and allusions to Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune. The original version of La Plainte was for piano solo, but the present arrangement allows the flute to explore the ‘many decorative phrases in the [piano’s] higher register’. It works exceptionally well.
In a recent review of a chamber ensemble arrangement of Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (on Danacord DACOCD 842), I noted several versions of this masterpiece created by various hands. These included the composer’s own arrangement for two pianos (1895), an arrangement for the ‘Pierrot Ensemble’ of flute, clarinet, violin and cello, and a reworking by Carl-Oscar Østerlind and Kristoffer Hyldig for violin, cello, piano and clarinet. This version for flute and piano was made in 1925 by the French composer and writer, Gustave Samazeuilh (1877-1967). It is an enjoyable and effective transcription, but for me the orchestral original is just sheer perfection.
My discovery was Bilitis, a piece with a complicated history. In 1897, Debussy set three poems by Pierre Louÿs for female voice and piano, and published them as Les Chansons de Bilitis. In 1900-1901 he expanded this into an instrumental piece with two flutes, two harps and celesta, designed to accompany a narrator reading twelve poems from Louÿs’s collection. Three of these were arrangements of the original songs. It is understood that this score was lost. In 1914, Debussy recalled elements of this music in Six Épigraphes antiques for piano duo. This recording is a transcription for flute and piano of those Épigraphes. (In 1939, Ernest Ansermet devised an orchestral arrangement.)
The listener should bear in mind the pastiche nature of the songs, the titles and the music. Pierre Louÿs managed to fool classicists into believing that he had discovered poems by the Greek poet Bilitis, a friend of Sappho, in a lost tomb in Cyprus. The music has an artificially developed archaic feeling, created by ecclesiastical modes, whole-tone scales and arabesques. The entire score has a timeless effect. I never tire of hearing this music in any version. This arrangement for flute and piano is particularly satisfying.
André Caplet was a French composer and conductor. For better or worse, he is now recalled mainly for his orchestrations of some of Debussy’s works, including Children’s Corner, the ever popular ‘Clair de lune’ from the Suite bergamasque, and The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian. Several of Caplet’s many original pieces have appeared on record in recent years. The Deux petites pièces for flute and piano were written in 1897 when Caplet was studying at the Paris Conservatoire. The Reverie and Petite valse look to Fauré for their inspiration and charm; they also present some wayward harmonies and modulations on their own account.
I am not sure why Gabriel Fauré’s Violin Sonata No. 1 has been arranged for flute. This does not appear to have been sanctioned by the composer. (The liner notes do not say who made this arrangement.) A large and impressive work in four movements, the Sonata is often credited as the composer’s earliest success. It is characterised by a romantic mood, vibrancy and passion. Highlights here are the thoughtful andante and the vivacious scherzo. Fine as this reworking is, I prefer the original incarnation, even if the wind instrument does cut the mustard with the ebullient scherzo.
Flutist Ransom Wilson and pianist François Dumont give splendid performances of all this music. The sound is well balanced. Roger Nichols wrote ideal programme notes, with concise but wholly relevant details of each work. There are the usual biographies of the two soloists. The cover painting, La Rue Saint-Lazare, temps lumineux (1893) by Camille Pissarro sums up the ethos of this disc.
I enjoyed all the music on this innovative CD. The three arrangements are interesting experiments, of interest to aficionados of Fauré’s and Debussy’s music. I felt that Bilitis for flute was a major addition to the repertoire. On the other hand, I will stick with the originals of Fauré’s Violin Sonata and Debussy’s voluptuous orchestral piece Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.
John France
