This is a reissue of
the first of two discs from a Forlane
boxed set which Gary Higginson reviewed
in 2003.
El-Khoury was born
in Beirut but has spent much of his
life in France. He is also a published
poet. He wrote some hundred works between
1969 and 1978. One of the peaks of his
career was a concert given by the Orchestre
Colonne conducted by Pierre Dervaux
(1917-1992) in Paris on 9 December 1983.
The pianist Abdel Rahman El-Bacha also
participated. Several of the works had
the poetry of Khalil Gibran as their
subject. The concert marked the Gibran
centenary. Several months before the
concert the same forces took these El-Khoury
works into a recording session.
Further background
on El-Khoury can be found in a Naxos
interview.
The Dance of the
Eagles is an exhilarating miniature
in which Eastern conventions in Western
music are honoured. This rumbustious
piece is an extension of the paraphernalia
of Arabian exotica represented by Rimsky-Korsakov,
Mussorgsky and Khachaturian. Les
dieux de la Terre is a Gibran-inspired
piece which can be heard as a dissonant
extension of Debussy. Sometimes it coasts
close to Messiaen. The notes refer to
echoes of Penderecki’s free chromaticism.
The character of this atmospheric piece
is downbeat, awed and at times suggestive
of life at the edge of a deep pit of
despair. The two movement La nuit
et le fou is another Gibran piece
and shares the character and palette
of Les dieux de la Terre.
The Requiem for
Orchestra is one of triptych of
works shaped by the war in Lebanon.
The cloud-hung depressive mood is off-set
by a singing line for the massed strings
at 5:14 onwards although this too becomes
saturated with anxiety and then violence.
The work was written in Beirut in December
1980 and is dedicated to Lebanese
martyrs of the war. The first panel
of the triptych is Le Liban en flammes.
It developed from a poem El-Khoury had
written in 1976 when the war was at
its height. Another sturdy dignified
benediction of a theme on the strings
speaks of tenderness and grief intermingled.
This rises to a majestic and very accessible
climax. This piece is amongst El-Khoury’s
most successful works - stylistically
situated somewhere between Rubbra, Kodaly
and Rozsa. The third panel of the triptych,
Symphony: The Ruins of Beirut is
available on Naxos 8.557043. review
The earliest piece
here is Le Regard du Christ written
while the composer was in Paris at age
22 and dedicated to his parents. With
a title like that I was expecting Messiaen-like
material but in fact this is a work
of melodic tenderness, pastoral simplicity
and majestic character. It is without
the dissonance of the two Gibran-based
works. We can, I think, forgive the
occasional tangential flirtation with
sentimentality when El-Khoury comes
close to film music - perhaps Rota.
Look out for another
Naxos disc rescuing the second of the
two Forlane discs: Meditation poètique
(1986); Piano Concerto (1984) with
Abdel Rahman El Bacha; the two Poèmes
for piano and orchestra with David Lively
and the two Serenades. This disc was
recorded live at the Salle Pleyel in
February and March 1986
The present disc is
generously packed, grippingly recorded
and well documented. The music is occasionally
striking, evidently sincere and is played
with great engagement even if there
is the occasional slip.
This is music well
worth hearing and from a source and
on subject matter that is un usual to
many western ears - something rich and
strange, as Shakespeare said.
Rob Barnett
Orchestre Colonne/Pierre Dervaux 
