André Laporte is one of the most important Flemish composers of
his generation. His substantial and hugely varied output includes
instrumental works for various combinations, orchestral and vocal
music as well as a large-scale opera Das Schloss
based on Kafka’s novel.
His music is mostly
atonal, and at times serial although he also went through a
brief minimalist period with short works such as Chamber
Music (1975, soprano and instruments) and A Flemish
Round (1980, four players). From a quite early stage
of his composing career, he showed an inclination towards polystylism
mixing strongly dissonant, atonal music with more overtly diatonic
material. This may be heard in the early Nachtmusik
as well as in the much later De ekster op de galg,
Passacaglia serena (1994) and the three-act opera
Das Schloss. This should not be considered mere
eclecticism, but rather an attempt to achieve maximum expression.
Laporte’s polystylism may also reflect the composer’s natural
irony.
This generous compilation
consists of recordings made over a long period of time, some
of which have been previously released commercially. The featured
works span some thirty years and therefore provide a fair appreciation
of his output and musical progress.
The first disc is
entirely devoted to orchestral works composed between 1969 and
2000. Jubilus for brass and percussion is short
with a somewhat misleading title for there is none of the celebratory
character that one might have expected. The piece, conceived
as a long crescendo, opens almost inaudibly with percussion.
As the music unfolds, aleatoric notation is used and is sometimes
reminiscent of the Polish composers of the 1960s such as Łutosławski
and Penderecki. The music ends abruptly. In Nachtmusik
(“Night Music”), one can already spot some of Laporte’s polystylism
in that the music juxtaposes, confronts and opposes serial “night
music” (one may think of Bartók) and somewhat distorted quotes
from Mozart’s archetypal Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
The music eventually suggests nightmare rather than peaceful
contemplation of a starry sky. On the other hand, Transit
for large string orchestra is a magnificent study in string
writing and stylistically speaking the music remains remarkably
coherent throughout. This impressive piece is probably one of
Laporte’s finest achievements. Fantasia-Rondino con tema
reale for violin and orchestra was composed as the test-piece
for the finals of the 1989 Queen Elisabeth Competition. The
“tema reale” (“Royal theme”) has nothing to do with Bach’s but
is rather a theme on notes derived both from “Belgique” (B-G-E)
and from the names of several Belgian kings and queens. Some
phrases from the Belgian national anthem La Brabançonne
also briefly appear throughout. The bipartite structure is also
tailored in such a way that the soloist may display his musicality
and sense of line in the Fantasia and his technical virtuosity
in the Rondino. This concise work perfectly served its aim as
a test piece but the performance heard here also proves that
it is quite satisfying musically. I must admit that De
ekster op de galg (“The Magpie on the Gallows”) is one
of my favourites here and not only because it is inspired by
a much loved painting by Peter Breughel. Breughel’s painting
is one of his most beautiful landscapes; but its surface is
deeply deceptive. The dominating feature is the huge dark gallows
upon which the magpie seems to be pondering upon “thoughts too
deep for words”. At the foot of the gallows, there is a newly-dug
grave and a cross, although neither dissuades the country folk
from dancing. In the background there is a sun-bathed city -
maybe Brussels. The painting, however, was made at the time
of the Spanish occupation under the Duke of Alba, so that it
may also suggest those dark terrible times through ominous undertones.
Laporte turned the piece into a colourful overture or tone poem
that reflects the various sights in the canvas. Woodwind and
strings suggest the peaceful beauty of the landscapes, darker
harmonies hint at the grave. A clarinet soliloquy represents
the magpie and a bright chorale for brass and percussion the
sun-bathed city. All these various materials are combined in
a most satisfying way that results in a very fine and attractive
work that should become popular as a concert opener. The quite
recent Concerto grosso for wind orchestra, celesta
and percussion was composed at the eve of the new millennium.
It is, to my mind, a fair example of Laporte’s present music-making
in that it successfully blends serial and tonal elements to
great effect. After the arresting opening gesture, the music
spells out a twelve-tone row that will be used later in various
guises but that will often be confronted with more tonal material
until reconciliation is achieved in the short epilogue.
Aside from the three
works and the opera recorded here Laporte’s vocal output is
not particularly abundant. To these, one may add a substantial
Blake setting (Eight Songs of Experience for mixed
chorus – 1979), a short Shakespeare piece for high voice and
piano (How soft, when thou, my music…
- 1992) and Momenti d’estasi on a text by Umberto
Eco composed as a test piece for the semi-finals of the 2000
Queen Elisabeth Song Competition as well as the already mentioned
short Joyce setting (Chamber Music for soprano
and four instruments – 1975). One might also add the Quasimodo
cantata Le Morte Chitarre for tenor, flute and
strings composed in 1969, later incorporated into his substantial
masterpiece La Vita non è Sogno. Laporte’s earliest
choral work De Profundis was composed for and
dedicated to Vic Nees who conducted the first performance. For
most of its duration, this is a fairly traditional setting of
the Latin text, albeit with a few interpolations in English.
It is one in which the composer blends various techniques -
tonal, serial and modal - to achieve his expressive aims. As
already hinted, the Quasimodo cantata La Vita non è Sogno
for speaker, tenor, baritone, flute, chorus and orchestra is
one of Laporte’s major achievements and, to my mind, one of
his masterpieces. This substantial work is a setting of various
poems by Salvatore Quasimodo. It also includes an impressive
“war” section setting a text by Marinetti to great dramatic
effect. The Quasimodo poems chosen by Laporte were written at
different stages of the poet’s life, so that they “clearly and
without any ambiguity reflect as a whole the inner evolution
of the artist, his permanent strife for a positive conception
of life and an ever-growing understanding between artist and
society” (the composer’s words). The cantata opens with a prologue
Alla Nuova Luna set for narrator and orchestra.
There then follow three settings of poems that Quasimodo wrote
when he was a member of the so-called Florentine Hermetism,
the third being an a cappella setting of Ed è subito sera
(“And suddenly it’s evening” - also set by Elizabeth Lutyens).
A short, brutal orchestral interlude for brass and percussion
introduces what one might refer to as the “war” section, opening
with a stirring setting of Alle fronde dei salici
opening with the words “And how could we ever sing/with a stranger’s
foot upon our breast/amidst the dead abandoned on the squares/on
the ground hardened by the frost…” set for narrator, vocalising
chorus and orchestra. The next poem Uomo del mio tempo
(“The man of our time”) is for baritone and orchestra using
highly expressive recitation, sometimes verging on Sprechgesang.
The next is the striking setting for speaking chorus of Marinetti’s
Il bombardamento di Adrianopoli in which what sounds
to me like pre-recorded material is used to enhance a powerfully
dramatic impact. This ends with a short epilogue featuring the
words “Forget your fathers, young people”, a straight condemnation
of the older generation and an appeal to the young to build
a better world. Il mio paese è Italia (“My country is
Italy”) for narrator and orchestra again recalls the past’s
atrocities while paying heart-felt tribute to the poet’s country.
This section functions as an introduction to Le morte chitarre
(“The Dead Guitars”) in which the poet colourfully evokes Italy.
Again set for narrator, chorus and orchestra, the final section
is far from overtly optimistic (“Yet, what do you want, you
vermin of Christ?/Nothing happens in the world and man/is still
clasping his raven’s wings/below the rain and shouts love and
dissonance…”). It concludes the work in disillusioned undertones.
The much later Testamento de Otoño (“Autumn testament”)
is another substantial piece for baritone, strings and harp
deploying an eponymous poem by Pablo Neruda, of which Laporte
only sets the last part Recomendaciones finales (“Final
recommendations”). The poet seems to take leave of his readers
and looks back at his life, while eventually coming to the conclusion
that one thing remained constant throughout his entire artistic
life: his belief in poetry and art. This can also apply to Laporte’s
oeuvre as a whole.
The libretto of
Laporte’s three-act opera Das Schloss was devised
by the composer who based it on Max Brod’s dramatised version
of Kafka’s eponymous, unfinished novel. The novel expresses
all the typical concerns found in many other works by the writer:
the difficult relationship between human beings, the incommunicability,
the absurdity of administration and the like with many references
and allusions to a number of mythological characters drawn from
antiquity and also from Wagner’s operas as well as some contemporary
subjects close to the writer. For example, in the only choral
passage in the opera (Act 1 Scene 3), the servants sing a short
text by Jaroslaw Hasek, the author of The Good Soldier Schweik).
Kafka’s novel may be read in many different ways; and Laporte,
who has known and admired the novel for many long years, has
obviously given much thought to its various possible meanings
while considering it as the subject of his opera. Such inquisitive
questioning about the novel also had an influential impact on
the musical setting. While quintessentially Laporte throughout,
it includes brief quotes from and allusions to other composers’
music, such as Wagner and Berg.
The story may be
told fairly easily. A cold dark winter night, K. arrives in
a village recoiling at the foot of a high hill on which stands
the ominous shadow of the Castle. K. is supposed to become the
new surveyor employed by the Castle’s administration. Having
found rustic lodging at the Bridge Inn, he learns that his work
permit has not been granted. K. tries to obtain it from the
Castle’s authorities. All in vain, for he is bluntly told that
no surveyor is needed but that he might accept a small job as
the school’s warden. He confronts the absurd behaviour of the
Mayor, his so-called assistants - assigned to spy on him - and
several others that are unable to give him any assistance. He
eventually meets Bürgel, an official from the Castle, who seems
at first willing to help him although this is not his prerogative.
Bürgel embarks on a long speech about the greatness and strong
organisation of the administration at the end of which K. falls
asleep.
As already mentioned,
Laporte draws on a wide-ranging technical palette, in which
tonal and atonal elements clash, confront and enhance in a never-ending
expressive search. Most of the time, however, the music is quite
close to that of Berg’s Wozzeck, and it achieves
its many expressive aims in a most successful way. Laporte’s
opera is undoubtedly one of his most substantial works as well
as being a musically successful synthesis of his music-making
painstakingly refined and perfected over the years. That this
powerful opera has not yet achieved the same status as Wozzeck
is an inexplicable mystery. I really hope that the present re-issue
of this recording made after the first performances in Brussels
will trigger renewed interest in one of the finest operas of
the late 20th century.
These recordings
were made over of long period, but the earliest ones have been
superbly transferred while the more recent ones retain their
excellent digital lustre. This generously filled boxed set provides
the best possible survey of the varied and substantial output
of one of the most important Flemish composers of the second
half of the 20th century. We must be thankful that
he is still active in these early years of the 21st
century too.
Hubert Culot
Solisten
van het Symfonieorkest van de BRT/André Laportea ;
Evgueni Bushkov (violin)d ; BRTN Filharmonisch Orkestbdf ;
Symfonieorkest van de BRTc ; Vlaams Radio Orkestg ;
Alexander Rahbaribdf, Hiroshi Wakasugic, Koen
Kesselsg
