Dutilleux: Metaboles; Concerto for cello, Music, Boris Pergamenschikow, Henri Dutilleux, Yan Pascal Torelier, Yan Pascal Tortelier, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Edward Cervenka, 20th/21st Century Orchestral Music, Cello Concerto, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music, Concerto, Orchestral, Orchestral Music
. Ok. There are dancers on stage, but it is a full orchestra that plays it, and it has yet to see the light of day completely recorded anywhere.
Shame on Chandos for overlooking this.
Landmarks of modern French orchestral music.......2004-01-02
Henri Dutilleux has increasingly been regarded as one of the finest of living composers, and as his conservative-modernist style--derived from Debussy and Ravel, though more chromatic and less tonally-centered than either--has become less unfashionable his music has received an increasing number of recordings. Amongst the finest of these have been Yan-Pascal Tortelier's readings for Chandos, and this 4-CD boxed set contains Tortelier's three individual discs, plus a 22-minute bonus disc of a live performance (Tortelier again) of the composer's 1997 work The Shadows of Time. When released, this collection was a complete recording of all Dutilleux's acknowledged orchestral works: this is no longer true, as Dutilleux is still writing, although his post-Shadows work is yet to be recorded. (Hopefully Hans Graf's ongoing budget-price Arte Nova series of Dutilleux recordings will bring matters up to date.)
I have already reviewed the individual discs included on this set, so I will only describe the works briefly, but taken as a whole, they undoubtably rank as amongst the most important orchestral music of the post-war period. Chronologically speaking, they begin with the two symphonies. The first of these, completed in 1951, begins with a slow, mysterious passacaglia, follows it with an overly virtuosic scherzo, a deeply-felt nocturnal slow movement and a flamboyand finale. It is a considerable achievement, though it is some way from Dutilleux's fully mature style, unlike the Second Symphony, completed eight years later. This work is subtitled 'Le Double', as a concertino-like group of 12 players forms a counter-orchestra to the main band--though its function is not of a concerto grosso nature but merely to allow a much greater variety of colours and timbres. The first movement begins mysteriously, building to a dramatic climax. The slow movement (in which the counter-orchestra is particularly prominent) contains a wonderful range of musical colours, while the finale begins vigorously but lapses half-way through into a slow epilogue.
The 1964 work Métaboles is effectively a brief concerto for orchestra in five movements. The first four movements each showcase a different section of the orchestra--alternating fast and slow movements--and in the finale the whole orchestra comes together for a vigorous conclusion. Tout un monde lointain, a 1970 cello concerto based on the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, is a deliriously nocturnal work in five movements that combines delightful solo writing with some extraordinary orchestration, before fading out ambiguously. Perhaps the finest of Dutilleux's orchestral works is Timbres, espace, mouvement, a darkly ecstatic diptych inspired by Van Gogh's painting 'Starry Night'. Two powerfully visionary panels are separated by a forceful interlude for the orchestral cellos alone.
L'Arbre des songes, completed in 1985, is a dreamlike violin concerto in four movements that play without a break. Lyrical and fantastic in equal measure, it has often been described as one of the finest violin concerti of the 20th century, and I wouldn't dispute that rating. Mystère de l'instant is a 1989 work, a sequence of ten atmospheric 'snapshots' for strings and solo cimbalom. The first is an extraordinary evocation of a mass of flying birds; while the other nine are good, they don't quite live up to the first. Finally, The Shadows of Time is perhaps the only authentically angry work in Dutilleux's output. A meditation questioning the validity of music in a world capable of the Holocaust, it begins ambivalently with an evocation of ticking clocks against tense orchestral writing. A solo treble sings 'Why me? Why the star?' before the music builds to an angry climax. After an interlude and a second, equally angry climax, the finale returns to the ambivalent mood of the opening, and the work ends with return of the ticking clocks.
The performances on this set range from good to excellent, but whether the set will be of interest probably depends on whether one owns any of the individual discs. For those who do, or who only need a recording of The Shadows of Time, Hans Graf's first Arte Nova disc may prove more attractive, but those wanting the complete available works in one easy package will find this compilation well-nigh unbeatable.
Music for a Starry Night.......2003-02-26
The reason to buy this boxed set is not to acquire new, definitive interpretations of much represented music; it is to become acquainted with a composer who has had no prior integral recording. That is justification enough. The music of Henri Dutilleux (born 1916) manages to be unmistakably "modern" without being the slightest bit doctrinaire or off-putting: Dutilleux's roots go down deeply into the impressionist soil of Claude Debussy, although unlike Debussy, Dutilleux shows an interest in polyphonic complexity rather than in chord-based harmonic color as such. In addition, Dutilleux's structures usually correspond to what one can call "the symphonic" in a way that Debussy rarely essayed: and indeed his first two orchestral scores were symphonies (1951 and 1959). Like many composers in the aftermath of World War Two who refused to embrace the procedures of the "Second Viennese School," Dutilleux found himself somewhat marginalized. While Dutilleux received performances and commissions and was recorded over the years, he never enjoyed the cachet of, say, Pierre Boulez. In an essay on "The Symphony in France," published in "Paths to Modern Music" (1971), the astute Laurence Davies had to plead for Dutilleux, "a much underestimated composer outside his own country" whose "brilliantly clear textures" make his Second Symphony (subtitled "The Double") "an astounding achievement." On record, Rostropovich played the Cello Concerto and Stern his Violin Concerto; other works have been recorded here and there. The neglect is largely made up for in Yan Pascal Tortelier's comprehensive four-disc survey for Chandos, illustrated appropriately on the jewel-box and on the pamphlet by van Gogh's "Starry Night." On CD 1, Tortelier pairs the two symphonies. Davies valued the Second over the First Symphony, although he admitted the virtues of the latter, particularly its opening Passacaglia. The musical language of the First Symphony is close (by way of a known reference) to Frank Martin's: intensely chromatic without abandoning tonality. (Dutilleux's Passacaglia resembles Martin's free-standing endeavor of the same name in its full-orchestra version, available on a Chandos CD under Matthias Bamert). The two inner movements are a colorful Scherzo and a darkly colored slow movement. The Finale, like the First Movement, is a theme with variations - virtually a second passacaglia, but wider ranging in its moods than the First Movement. The Second Symphony pits a small orchestra of about ten instruments, including harpsichord and celesta, against the full orchestra, hence the appellation of "The Double." I imagine that this is a difficult score to record, as the spatial element resists transcribed representation. That said, this three-movement work is quite as fascinating and beautiful as its precursor. On CD 2, Tortelier gives us Dutilleux's Violin Concerto, "L'arbre des songes" ("The Tree of Dreams" [1985]), in a sequence of uninterrupted movements proper and interludes. This is Dutilleux the mystic, sharing certain penchants with Olivier Messiaen, although never sounding brash or vulgar, as Messiaen sometimes does. "The Tree of Dreams" is music for late-night listening. The "Two Sonnets by Jean Cassou" for baritone and orchestra, dating from the 1940s, show the composer working in a tradition of French orchestral song going back to Hector Berlioz and his "Nuits d'été." The score called "Timbres, espace, et mouvement avec interlude" (1978) takes its inspiration from van Gogh's "Starry Night." It depicts the awe of stellar delirium effectively - less wildly than Messiaen, be it said - yet with some strange and novel sounds. "Métaboles" (1964), on CD 3, again shows some kinship with Martin (think of "The Four Elements") and gives the impression of a symphony by another name. The Cello Concerto, entitled "Tout un monde lointain" (difficult convincingly to translate into English: "A Whole World Far Away"), is another essay in religious yearning and phantasmagoria. Like Berlioz, Dutilleux has a gift for melody: the concerto-format lets him exploit his talent, allotting the "singing role" to the solo instrument and supporting the solo line in a delicate web of hallucinatory accompaniment. The descriptive title comes from one of the Baudelaire poems that the concerto purports to "interpret." This is another link to Berlioz, who made one of the earliest settings of Baudelaire. "Delicacy" and "exquisiteness" are adjective that come to mind insistently as one listens to Dutilleux's music. One thinks of them as French traits par excellence. They appear again in "Mystère de l'instant," a quasi-concerto for cimbalom and strings - by no means so odd as it might seem. On CD 4, Tortelier gives us "The Shadows of Time" (1995), for voice and orchestra, which shows Dutilleux refining his mode of expression even further toward the seamless and translucent. With one minor quibble, I recommend this boxed set. The quibble is the shortness of the fourth disc. Chandos could easily have added a performance of Dutilleux's string quartet, "Ainsi la nuit," which would have turned a stinting measure into a fair one. Discs 1 - 3 are well filled.
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- Are you serious?
- Superb performances, great music
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Dutilleux: Metaboles; Concerto for cello
Manufacturer: Chandos
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ASIN: B000000B1S
Release Date: 1997-11-18 |
Tracks:
- Metaboles: I. Incantatoire
- Metaboles: II. Lineaire
- Metaboles: III. Obsessionnel
- Metaboles: IV. Torpide
- Metaboles: V. Flamboyant
- Tout un monde lointain (Concerto For Cello And Orchestra): I. Enigme
- Tout un monde lointain (Concerto For Cello And Orchestra): II. Regard
- Tout un monde lointain (Concerto For Cello And Orchestra): III. Houles
- Tout un monde lointain (Concerto For Cello And Orchestra): IV. Miroirs
- Tout un monde lointain (Concerto For Cello And Orchestra): V. Hymne
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): I. Appels
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): II. Echos
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): III. Prismes
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): IV. Espaces lointains
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): V. Litanies
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): VI. Choral
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): VII. Rumeurs
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): VIII. Soliloques
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): IX. Metamophoses (sur le nom Sacher)
- Mystere de l'instant (grande formation): X. Embrasement
Amazon.com
This decade has seen the emergence of Dutilleux (b. 1916) as the most important French composer after Messiaen. Like Messiaen, Dutilleux works in a defiant atonality that sometimes embraces twelve-tone music, but at other times does not. The works on this excellent disc are all masterpieces, especially "Metaboles" (1964) and "Mystere de l'Instant" (1989), which have been recorded a number of times. "Tout un Monde Lointain" (1970) is a cello concerto that's quite graceful, if just as doggedly postmodern. If you like the postmodernism of Witold Lutoslawski, György Ligeti, and Alfred Schnittke, you'll really go for Dutilleux. Highly recommended. --Paul Cook
Customer Reviews:
Are you serious?.......2007-06-19
Although I absolutely love Métaboles and the cello concerto (indeed two of the best orchestral works of the second half of the 20th century), I cannot say I'm convinced at all by this poor, messy recording. The performances here are outrageously dull, with no spirit or focus whatsoever. To prove my point, I would recommend other reviewers to listen to the recording of Métaboles by Manuel Rosenthal featured in the Musique de notre temps box-set (I think it's on the Erato label) or the cello concerto by Rostropovich.
Superb performances, great music.......2000-09-01
This disc, in combination with the Chandos recording of the Dutilleux violin concerto, provides a useful collection of the orchestral music of this most fastidious of modern masters. Dutilleux does not compose many works, but takes great care with each -- not for nothing has it been observed that he has "resigned himself to only creating masterpieces".
"Metaboles" isn't a masterpiece, though. It's a transitional work, written in 1965, while he was in the process of moving away from his early style towards the more mature one we see in the other works on this disc. And yet it's a highly enjoyable miniature concerto for orchestra, the first four movements each highlighting a different section of the orchestra, before they come together for the flamboyant finale.
The cello concerto "Tout un monde lointain" (the title comes from Baudelaire's "Fleurs du mal") came five years later, from a Rostropovitch commission. In the interim, Dutilleux's style had advanced enormously; developing a remarkble talent for orchestration and for miniature, yet telling, detail. The five movements of the concerto span a wide range of lyrical and fantastical episodes before the final fadeout.
"Mystere de l'instant" comes from 1989, and takes Dutilleux's ear for detail perhaps as far as any work of his has so far. It's a series of ten miniatures for string orchestra and a small percussion contingent -- "snapshots", as the composer called them. The first of these is one of the most striking openings anywhere in the orchestral literature, as the composer evokes the flight of hundreds of birds all at once, and each one of these miniatures displays the composer's grasp of telling detail.
The performances on this disc are outstanding -- Tortelier has a real affinity with Dutilleux's music, and makes the correct decision to use a large string group in "Mystere...". Boris Pergamenshikov, while not erasing memories of Rostropovitch, is a very good soloist in the concerto. Highly recommended.
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- Royal treatment by Concertgebouw
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Anthology of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, 1960-1970
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ASIN: B0009A412Y
Release Date: 2005-07-12 |
Customer Reviews:
Royal treatment by Concertgebouw.......2005-08-11
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is captured in a 1960-1970 Anthology in 14 CDS that has some world famous conductors, some famous and not so familiar compositions. I liked Verdi's Falstaff and most of the Germanic composers. There was a British Britten and American Varese. I have trouble enjoying some 20th Century compositions though I have CDs by Siblelius, Ravel, Dutilleux, Hindemith, Shostakovich, Prokoviev, and Stravinsky. My pre-order for the 1950-1960 set may be hard to come by. I plan to travel to Amsterdam and take in the music venues.
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Dutilleux - who?.......2005-08-20