For many years the
sole catalogue representation of Ropartz’s
six symphonies was the 1986 Pathé-Marconi
of the Third in E major (1906). The
handsome recording on Pathé-Marconi
(LP: EL270348; cassette: EL270348-4;
CD: CDM7646892 L’Esprit Française
series) was made by Françoise
Pollet (sop), Nathalie Stutzmann (alto),
Thierry Dran (ten) and Frédéric
Vassar (bass) with Michel Plasson conducting
the Toulouse Capitole Orchestra and
Orféon Donostiarra.
Things have now changed
with the appearance on the scene of
the first CD in Timpani exciting intégrale
of the Ropartz First and Fourth symphonies:
review
Associate of the ill-fated
and martyred Magnard, and pupil of Massenet
and Franck, Ropartz was long-lived and
prolific. As director of the Conservatoire
at Nancy for twenty-five years he premiered
many new non-French works. He followed
this with ten equally stimulating years
at Strasbourg.
The Second Symphony
straddles the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. In the same year is from
the turn of the century, the year after
Ravel’s Pavane; the year of Debussy’s
Nocturnes and the year before
Sibelius’s Second Symphony. It is in
Ropartz’s accustomed four movement format.
The long first movement recalls Bruckner
with excited yet quietly elysian writing
for the strings rising to determined
climactic four-square statements. It
ends with a calming quiet passage. The
Molto vivace is playful and broadly
suggestive of the lightness of heart
in Beethoven’s Pastoral with
some thoughtful reflections to provide
contrast. The Adagio takes us
back into Bruckner-Wagner territory;
serene and sustained singing lines are
the order of the day. These sometimes
quasi-Mahlerian touches are juxtaposed
with lissom writing for woodwind. Then
comes a sanguine and businesslike Allegro
molto with a chivalric mood recalling
the earlier symphonies of Miaskovsky
and Stanford. In an ecstatic aside we
also get a theme worthy of Rachmaninov
at 3:55 but with touches of the dancing
optimism of Franck’s symphony. This
is the first time I have heard the work
but the playing and interpretation here
communicate with great vitality and
freshness. It will be interesting to
hear what Lang-Lessing makes of the
Petite Symphonie of 1943 after
a fairly ordinary earlier recording
from Timpani.
The Fifth Symphony
by Ropartz was written amid the
Nazi Occupation during the composer’s
retirement to his native Breton village
of Lanloup. Its first and second movements
comprise a lively Allegro assai which
launches with a real crash and an exuberant
Presto romp. We then get a Ropartz
hallmark Largo - a piece of really
touching writing which, while holding
onto its dignity, has a melancholy elegiac
loveliness. This, the longest movement
is carried by the strings but there
are some notable noble statements from
solo horn and woodwind. A brief (5:14)
Allegro moderato has the clean
euphoric classical lines of Moeran’s
Sinfonietta but with a Franckian-Breton
accent. The epic-romantic Fourth with
its crashing cinematic seascapes contrasts
with the airy classical zest of the
Fifth; both powerful works but differing
in style and atmosphere. The ancient
Jacques Pernoo conducted ORTF broadcast
version had a more propulsively explosive
approach especially in the first movement
- it sounded positively Elgarian (In
the South) in the first movement.
Even so Lang-Lessing directs a vibrant
performance that will not disappoint.
The Fifth Symphony
was given its first performance at a
UNESCO concert on 14 November 1946 alongside
Honegger’s Third Symphony. The conductor
was Charles Munch who has also presided
over a festival of Ropartz works in
Occupied France in 1943.
The recording quality
in this case is truly excellent capitalising
on the liveliness of the Salle Poirel
acoustic without allowing its sonorous
spaces to cloud the textures.
The various essays
are in French and English - and, by
the way, the English - in translation
by John Tyler Tuttle - reads very well.
The CD is housed in a stiff card-fold
with the booklet slipped into a slit
on the inside front cover. The CD is
stem-mounted on a plastic case on the
inside rear. The booklet and case and
cover are all most tastefully designed.
Everything is sympathetically done with
a completely satisfying visual effect.
The cover is from a hyper-naturalistic
painting by Emile Friant - Les canaliers
de la Meurthe.
The studied neglect
of the symphonies had been relieved
only by venerable broadcasts of the
Fourth Symphony by Charles Bruck with
the Strasbourg Orchestra and of the
Fifth Symphony by Jacques Pernoo and
the ORTF orchestra. More recently Leonard
Slatkin revived the Fifth for French
Radio with the Orchestra National de
France on 18 January 2001 at the Théâtre
des Champs-Elysées. We should
not forget Slatkin whose adventurous
way with repertoire also included a
rare French foray into Florent Schmitt’s
Second Symphony (if anyone has a tape
or CDR of either of those Slatkin broadcasts
would they please contact me). In the
1980s came the Pathé recording
of the Third. After barren decades Radio
France in 2004 broadcast a complete
cycle of the Ropartz symphonies. In
Nancy on 22 and 24 September 2004 symphonies
1 and 4 were given; 5 and 6 followed
on 2 and 3 October 2004. These took
place in Nancy at the Salle Poirel;
the same venue and artists as here.
The Third Symphony
will be recorded later in 2006 to be
released in 2007 together with the Ropartz
Petite Symphonie in the third
and final volume in the series.
Two sturdy symphonies
rescued from neglect and presented no-holds-barred:
living viable works demonstrating Ropartz’s
musical command and tenacious mastery
of the form and of the orchestra.
Rob Barnett
ROPARTZ WEBSITE
http://www.ropartz.org/
OTHER ROPARTZ CD REVIEWS ON MUSICWEB
INTERNATIONAL
Symphonies
1 and 4
Timpani
- opera Le Pays
Timpani
chamber music incl. String Quartet No.
4
Timpani
- La Chasse and various song
cycles
Timpani
- Petite Symphonie and other
orchestral
Arion solo piano music
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Dec01/ropartzpf.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Nov01/Ropartz.htm
Marco
Polo - Masses and Motets
Marco Polo/Naxos
Le
Miracle and other choral-orchestral
Orchestra Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy/Sebastian
Lang-Lessing 
