Timpani have done Ropartz
proud and there is still plenty more
to come. The present disc had slipped
into the background when the arrival
of volume 2 of the symphonies and volume
1 of the string quartets reminded me
that it needed to be tackled.
As Michel Fleury points
out in his booklet notes, Ropartz at
one time was undecided between the literary
and musical careers. Even after his
appointment to the Nancy Conservatoire
his music often drew on literary subjects.
Such is the case here.
The incidental music
to Pêcheur d'Islande
was written for a stage production
of Pierre Lôti's book. While it
is a pity that Timpani did not give
us the complete music here is a suite
of three substantial movements. The
first La Mer d'Islande has a
sinister lapping ostinato. There are
no crashing waves or gale-lacerated
cliff-tops this time. The mood lies
somewhere between Rachmaninov's Isle
of the Dead, Bax's Tintagel,
Sibelius's En Saga (3:04) and
Franck's Psyché. The villageoise
style Les Danses smacks of dances
on the village green echoing the rustic
pleasures of Vaughan Williams' Hugh
the Drover and of Howard Hanson's
maypole dances in the opera Merry
Mount. The music here is dedicated
to Franck. Ropartz returned to Icelandic
scenery for his opera Le Pays splendidly
recorded by Timpani
review.
The Rhapsodie
for cello and orchestra proceeds:
lento, allegro, vivo.
There is no doubting Ropartz's warm
late-romantic credentials. That first
section is Delian and has the same instinctive
natural effect as Cras's Legende,
also for the same forces. The emotional
temperature can be equated with that
of the Bax and Moeran cello concertos
- especially the Moeran. Had Ropartz
written this work in the 1900s I am
sure there would have been more lento
than vivo. as it is this
work is ebullient yet borne up by the
mystical Celtic element. Indeed in the
lento the mood reaches across
the Manche to John Ireland's Forgotten
Rite and Legend.
In 1914 Ropartz responded
to a Théâatre Français
commission for extensive music for a
four act verse adaptation of Sophocles
Oedipus at Colonnus. He
obliged with nineteen separate pieces
and made a suite including the Preludes
to acts 1, 2 and 3. Between them comes
The Entry of Theseus and The
Lament. The first Prelude has
a drooping sigh characteristic of much
of Bernard Herrmann's film music (1:40).
This is music of heavy melancholy tipping
over into tragedy. The Entry of Theseus
begins with stern antiphonal brass
fanfares, solemn and grand, offset with
a limping Borodin-style march (1:03)
that just occasionally sounds like Walton.
The trembling warmth of the second act
prelude recalls Foulds’ April-England
and even more so Frank Bridge's
ecstatic Summer. The Lament
is suitably blanched and desolate
with a faintly Bachian edge. The final
Prelude is a swashbuckling affair with
valiant fanfares and even a momentary
hint or two of Debussy's La Mer.
The outstandingly detailed
and poetically informed notes are by
the tireless Michel Fleury. As usual
the translation by John Tyler Tuttle
reads extremely well.
This disc again satisfyingly
closes yet more loopholes in the Ropartz
catalogue and does so with conviction.
Ropartz is showcased
here as a writer of music of character
both dreamy and decisive.
Rob Barnett
Henri Demarquette (cello) 
