ROUSSEL Elpénor -
Poème Radiophonique
MOZART Flute Quartet in D Kv 285
BOUDEWIJN BUCKINX AB
JOSEPH JONGEN Sérénade
Tendre
JAN HUYLEBROECK
Mégané
ARTHUR BLISS Conversations
Arco Baleno is an ensemble of six responsive and sensitive players comprising
string quartet plus flute and oboe. This is a very varied recital (fruitily
recorded) and one that amply justifies Belgian Radio 3 and KBC's confidence
in these young players. The Mozart is the piece most likely to be known in
other performances. It is given with aptly bubbly joie de vivre. However
this disc is unlikely to be bought for this reason. The other works are much
rarer.
The Roussel is restive and dashingly tuneful blending Ravel and the chamber
music of Herbert Howells (piano quartet). It is not a work likely to be well
known. The drowsy-eyed lent is done with wondering poise and the cuckoo
figure keeps the movement floatingly airborne. A superb movement followed
by a miniature gem of a Tres Animé finale ending with a typically
Mozartian flourish. The Buckinx's haunted atmosphere steps out of the same
family as the Roussel. The title is taken from the title initials of the
performing group.
Jongen's Serenade (one of several written in Bournemouth during WW1) is a
break from dizzy sensuality. This music (often hustling and bustling) is
a degree or two drier than the Roussel having cleaner more classic lines.
The Huylebroeck is also dry but not desiccated and by no means immune to
flights of sensual display as in the closing bars of the Toccata. The middle
Koraal is a connoisseur's fantasy of imaginative power. The final
Rondo's pizzicato strings and hurtling flute seem distinctly jazzy
while having poetic depth.
The five Bliss Conversations take in the jabbering chatter of a meeting
and the meeting of two lovers deep in a wood pictures with the lovers disaffected
and suspicious. In a ball room is typically galant at first but soon
the lights dim and things turn cold before returning to the slightly vapid
popular dance music of the time (1920). The solo Cor Anglais Soliloquy
is Bliss close to the British pastoral school (as in Seven American Poems
- now when will someone record those?) contrasted with a central dance
section. The final In The Tube at Oxford Circus might well be seen
as a chamber counterpart of Honegger's Pacific 231 although it finds
in lyrical tenderness; finally it returns to train music and accents that
sound Rumanian or Hungarian.
Recommended.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
This disc can be ordered from Arco Baleno at
arco.baleno@ping.be. UK sterling
price - 12GBP
fax Belgium - 050 393861
Arco
Baleno 
