These three discs were issued over
the period 2006-2008. They are grouped
here for convenience and are only available
separately.
Ondine defied predictability
when they signed up the Orchestre
de Paris and Christoph Eschenbach.
The First Symphony
groups what amount to four tone poems
into Roussel's most discursive and
rhapsodic symphony. It is an early
work with a sinuous impressionistic
charm borne out of Ravel's Grecian
classical world - Daphnis and Chloe.
While not as richly allusive and densely
imaginative as Bax's Nympholept
and Spring Fire there is a
kinship there as there is also with
the even later Bantock Pagan Symphony
and Ludolf Nielsen's orchestral
suites. In the first movement there
is even a prediction of Sibelius's
Tapiola. The soundstage delivered
by Ondine is wide and deep, naturalistic
rather than striving for the spectacular
- definitely not 1970s Decca. This
is a big honest recording.
From a quarter century
later comes the lithe and clean Fourth
Symphony which with its classical
clarity has cast aside all the romantic
apparatus so enthusiastically adopted
in the First Symphony. This is springy
and athletic music concerned with
forward movement rather than dwelling
on the vista. Together with its predecessor
it attracted Karajan who made classic
recordings (DG) as he did also with
Honegger 2 and 3 (DG). The symphony
is dedicated to conductor Albert Wolff
who premiered it with the Concert
Pasdeloup on 19 October 1935.
The Third Symphony
was also favoured by Karajan in the
1950s. It was the product of a composer
in his sixties writing in his Normandy
home at Vasterival. It was premiered
by the Boston SO and Koussevitsky
on 24 October 1930. The thud and thunder
of the first movement contrasts with
the pastoral melancholy meditation
of the Adagio. This is followed
by the fairground pleasantrie of the
Vivace and the massive fountains
of exultation of the last movement.
No wonder the audience - whose applause
forms part of the track - greeted
this performance with such warmth.
It's the only live recording among
the three discs.
Le Festin is
here given complete across 21 tracks.
You are likely to enjoy this music
- if you do already know it - if you
already number Ravel's Ma Mère
l'Oye and Debussy's Prélude
a l'après midi d'un faune among
your favourites. It has the magical
elegance of the Ravel and the sultriness
of the Debussy. Add to this the motorised
thunder of Roussel's last two symphonies.
It is superbly recorded - listen to
the whispering distant gold of the
violins in The Ants Dance in a
Circle (tr. 16). The instrumental
howls in the Funeral of the Gadfly
(tr. 24) are memorable. Also in
the same movement how similar some
of the writing is to Ravel's dawn
rustlings in Rapsodie espagnole.
Those gentle rustles from the tam-tam
suggest Ma Mère l'Oye.
Eschenbach heartbreakingly captures
the valedictory melancholy of Night
falling on the deserted garden but
brings out the solace too.
The third disc in
this survey gives us the two suites
from Bacchus et Ariane rather
than the whole ballet. Le Festin
predated the Great War. Bacchus
stands on the other side of the chasm.
The language is distant from the First
Symphony, Le Festin and Evocations.
Impressionism and romance have been
swept into a pestle and ground and
hammered with a mortar. The product
is less lavish, not as emotional -
an excess of emotion or passionate
allusion is seen by the composer as
a trap. The composer has picked up
influences from Stravinsky. I thought
of Constant Lambert's Tiresias
and the earlier Pomona
ballet at times. Strange how this
classical pagan subject would have
drawn music of such difference twenty
years earlier.
The Second Symphony's
opening lent is the longest
movement and proceeds from the brooding
oppression in the ascendant to exultant
skirling fanfares at 8.00 and to golden
upheavals at 13:00 onwards. It can
sound like the wild optimism of the
docks movement in Ibert's Escales
at 14:17 curving down into the
sometimes equivocal brooding harmony
of the opening. That harmonic ambiguity
is redolent of the start of Bax's
Second Symphony though nowhere near
as dense in detail. A bubbling
insouciant Modéré
of more than 8 minutes separates the
17 minute Lent from the final
Très lent at almost
16 minutes.
There are some interesting
choices here - not least that Eschenbach
and Ondine chose to mix in the two
famous ballets when if they had adopted
the usual approach (à la Erato
and Dutoit) we would have had two
symphonies per CD on a pair of CDs.
The notes for all
three discs are written by Roussel
authority Damien Top.
This makes for an
easy full price choice - poetically
done in every aspect.
Rob Barnett
see also
RECORDING
OF THE MONTH Albert
ROUSSEL (1869-1937) Bacchus
et Ariane (1931) op. 43, Suite
No. 1 [17:09]; Suite No. 2 [18:51]
Symphony No. 2 op. 23 (1919-21) [41:37]
Orchestre de Paris/Christoph Eschenbach
rec. Théâtre Mogador,
Paris, Feb 2005 (Bacchus);
Conservatoire de Paris, July 2005
(2) ONDINE ODE 1065-2 [77:58]
[Tony Haywood]
Orchestre de Paris/Christoph Eschenbach
