Adolphe ADAM (1803-1856)
La jolie fille de Gand (1842)
Queensland Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Mogrelia
rec. 1996, Ferry Road Studio, Brisbane, Australia
NAXOS 8.574342-43 [66:10 + 67:14]
Of the reams of commercially successful ballet music written for the French theatre during the nineteenth century – not to mention the ballet episodes inserted into operas as staged in Paris – remarkably little has survived in the repertoire to the present day (Wagner’s controversial ballet scene from Tannhäuser very much the exception that proves the rule). The eruption of the Ballets Russes into the western world in the years prior to the First World War laid an increased emphasis on the dramatic elements of the medium, and the experimental nature of the composition that were produced in this context effectively consigned much of the frankly lighter music of the earlier period to oblivion with only a few exceptional scores – Delibes’ Coppélia and Sylvia, Adam’s Giselle – surviving the change of fashion. Even those earlier ballets often appeared in abridged or mutilated forms, with Giselle often reduced to around one-half of its original length. It was only in the 1960s that conductors began once again to investigate the original scores, with Richard Bonynge leading the charge with a series of valuable recordings for Decca which revealed a whole mass of delightful and piquantly scored works by the likes of Massenet and his predecessors. Even so, the music itself has hardly enjoyed a real revival either in terms of live performance or rival recordings; and when this recording of Adam’s La jolie fille de Gand appeared on the Marco Polo label some twenty years ago, it does not appear that any of the music had previously been available on disc.
Marco Polo, which was given the apt description of “the label of discovery”, had a remarkably wide-ranging repertory of catholic taste, which gave rise to a series of releases which in some respects heralded a change in musical fashion: the music of Respighi and Villa-Lobos, for example, has since been enthusiastically taken up by other companies. Andrew Mogrelia with several different orchestras undertook a number of adventures in the field of nineteenth-century French ballet, including not only the complete Delibes score mentioned but also a series of excellently recorded Adam ballets in their complete and original versions. And very welcome these were too; although there were no hidden masterpieces revealed, the music was invariably well-written, well-scored and well-mannered in the sense that they plumbed no great emotional depths but never offended against good taste. Moreover Marco Polo ensured that listeners were enabled to fully engage with the scores, even in the absence of staged choreography, by supplying an elaborate synopsis and scenario closely allied to the plentiful tracking cues on the CD which ensured that even a novice (and most of we listeners were definitely novices) could easily identify what was going on. These booklet notes, fully reproduced here in this cheap Naxos release, remain invaluable, and show other companies what should be their policy with regard to reissued material.
The booklet also supplies us with some further information on the life of the composer himself. I had always been under the impression, reinforced by Berlioz’s usually unflattering comments in his memoirs, that Adam was a real pillar of the musical establishment who did his level best to frustrate the efforts of other composers – such as Berlioz himself – to bring musical style kicking and screaming into the realm of high romanticism. However it is interesting to discover that Adam himself suffered from the opposition of various promoters and impresarios in what was clearly a veritable snake-pit of Parisian musical life in the 1840s, with one theatre director vowing flatly that nothing by Adam would ever be staged by his company. That, together with the fact of his relatively early death, may have robbed Adam of the opportunity for future and possibly more adventurous development.
At the end of the day, though, it has to be admitted that although Adam’s music is charming and delightful throughout, there is not much in the way of real drama to be discovered here and the succession of lightweight ballet numbers begins to wear out its welcome long before the second of these discs has come to an end. As background music, or as music to accompany the charms of doubtless very pretty dancers, it never puts a foot wrong; but as a score to hold the close interest of the listener for over two hours, it lacks a certain urgency of approach. That is not to say that this recording of La jolie fille de Gand was not worthwhile twenty years ago, or that its reissue now should not equally be welcomed; but the fact that no rival recording has emerged in the meantime to challenge this excellently paced performance speaks largely for itself. And the availability of the music without the attentions of doubtless well-intentioned but misguided editors, re-arrangers, or those seeking to add their own pennyworth to Adam’s mixture, is all the better for being available as the composer actually wrote it.
Raymond Walker, reviewing the original Marco Polo issue for this site back in July 2002, complained of some lethargic tempos at the beginning of the second scene but admitted that he had been unable to compare these with the score. In the past five years piano arrangements of six individual numbers from the ballet have become available on the invaluable ISMLP website, and among these is the passage of which he principally complained (CD1, track 7). It must be observed that the speed set by Mogrelia matches exactly the printed metronome mark (presuming that to be authentic), so that any perceived sense of lethargy must be ascribed to the composer and not the performers. And the recording quality remains excellent. Just don’t play it all at once; you might get indigestion.
Welcome back then, complete with the original and apposite Degas cover illustration.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
