Pierre HENRY (1927-2017)
La Dixième Symphonie – Hommage à Beethoven: version en 8 mouvements (first sketch 1974)
Benoît Rameau (tenor)
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Orchestre Du Conservatoire de Paris
Chœur de Radio France
Le Jeune Chœur de Paris/Marzena Diakun, Bruno Mantovani, Pascal Rophé
rec. November 2019, La Cité de la Musique, Philharmonie de Paris
ALPHA CLASSICS 630 [74:06]
Brian Wilson didn’t “see the point of this pseudo-Beethoven mish-mash” in his review of this release, and so I had to dive in and see what my opinion might be. Pierre Henry is known as an innovator in electronic music, establishing the idea of ‘musique concrète’ together with Pierre Schaeffer in the mid 20th century and influencing that entire branch of contemporary music making. This Tenth Symphony was originally conceived as a tape piece in 1979. You can find a ‘remix’ version on YouTube which has all kinds of largely irritating drum beats and effects added, as well as samples of this recording if you want to ‘try before you buy.’ Basically, what was originally a collage of tapes of bits of recordings from Beethoven’s symphonies has become a collage of bits of scores that use the same bits that Henry used, and performed together with orchestras and singers arranged spatially in a concert hall that looks from the photo in the booklet as if it has more musicians than audience.
One of the interesting things about this recording is that the CD has an online address from which you can download 3D versions in MP3 and FLAC files. I’m more of a headphone listener in any case, and comparing these has been an intriguing experience. You have a more extreme stereo experience with the 3D version - a surround-sound feel that makes me wonder why this recording wasn’t released in SACD, in which format it could have been something of a demo disc. In any case, it’s good to know this option comes as part of the package. The CD stereo version is a more ‘civilised’ mix which has the orchestras blend, still delivering something with a Teutonic Charles Ives character, but one that is easier to cope with over two speakers.
As for the music, yes, this is the kind of thing that can drive you up the wall, but there are some interesting moments. The layering of sound in the fourth Andante movement and the delayed cadences that result about halfway through its twelve-minute duration are the sort of effects that work best to my ears. What I miss here in general is real transformation. It’s fine to have the sounds as recognisably Beethoven, and it’s fun to hear everything juxtaposed in surreal and unfamiliar ways, but what I hear is Beethoven and more Beethoven in unceasing tidal waves, with rarely a moment in which the sounds stand still and the jaw drops on encountering some kind of revelatory experience. We’ve had the ability to stretch and manipulate sounds electronically for ages now, and more than one composer has had fun in the studio with a row of tape recorders or a rack of channels to mix and edit to see what effects are thrown up using pre-recorded performances whether by chance and intuition or carefully planned design. In some ways the intensity of repeated exact sounds can be more effective than a live performance in which you are hearing antiphonal playing rather than that surreal mirror effect you can get when tinkering with recorded sounds. This said, the only real differences here are seeing what happens when you get enough players together to reproduce all of those spliced tapes in a concert hall, and the sheer scale of the piece as a whole.
Size isn’t everything however, and we ‘get the idea’ soon enough. I am sure the effect was pretty spectacular if you had a good seat at the live event, but in the end this is something you sit through rather than engage with in anticipation of the next moment of magic. If there is meant to be wit and humour here, then I don’t get the joke. Even the unadulterated final minutes seem to be a kind of acknowledgement of weakness, that you can’t get better than Beethoven himself.
Performance here is as good as it can be as far as I can tell, though there are moments where you can tell that the precision of tape is virtually impossible to recreate as multi-orchestral counterpoint. With only a very occasional cough and some brisk page-turning here and there to enhance the ‘live’ quality this is a fine enough recording, though it is more a souvenir of a unique event than anything I would recommend as a work for repeated listening. After going through the whole thing in one go my brain feels more bruised than galvanised.
Dominy Clements
Previous review: Brian Wilson
