Ropartz: Psaume 136, Le Miracle de Saint Nicolas and otherv vocal works

Joseph-Guy Ropartz is a composer one is bound to bump into when exploring turn-of-the-century French music. As Magnard he was an outsider, spending his time in the province (Nancy, Strasbourg) as a teacher and administrator. But despite those time-consuming duties he had the drive to accumulate a very extensive musical oeuvre, including six symphonies. I've always been intrigued by his reputation as 'Celtic bard' due to his allegiance to his Breton roots and I imagined him as a French pendant to Arnold Bax. So lately I decided to try my luck with a cheap Naxos CD collecting some of Ropartz' vocal works. My overall assessment is that it is certainly skillfully composed music that merits more attention than it gets nowadays. The style is derivative, which didn't bother Ropartz who once mused  that "if the originality of a composer dwells much more in the way of feeling than in the manner of expression, it is permissible for him to clothe his thoughts in traditional forms, without losing in any way his true quality". The earliest work here, Psaume 136 (Super flumina Babylonis; from 1897) is clearly indebted to Franck. (I am starting to get an idea by now how massively influential this Franco-Belgian composer has been). There's also a whiff of Berliozian monumentality, very apt given the psalm's subject matter. It's a tightly composed piece, suitably polyphonic, that shows a good command of the orchestra. The language is, as already said, conventional but there are a few striking harmonic moves nevertheless. This merits repeated audition.

The longest piece on this CD is Le Miracle de Saint Nicolas, a legend in 16 short tableaux that tells the lugubrious story about 3 boys that were killed and pickled by a butcher, but after seven years resuscitated by Saint Nicolas (with appropriate punishment for the butcher). The musical language is simple, deliberately so no doubt, lending the piece the character of a mystery play for amateurs and communities (similar to Britten's Noye's Fludde). Musically, it reminds me more of the young Debussy (a watered down version of La Damoiselle Elue) rather than Franck. The piece is scored for string orchestra with continuo parts for organ, piano and harp. There's a choir, children's voices and solos for a narrator, the butcher and Nicolas. All in all it's a quite atmospheric piece, maybe just a tad monotonous.

The three remaining shorter pieces are attractive works for choir and orchestra. Nocturne and Les Vêpres Sonnent date from the late 1920s, Dimanche from 1911. Again the style seems to orient itself quite emphatically to Debussy. Celtic echoes I didn't hear anywhere on this disc.

All in all a worthwhile release that didn't bowl me over but provides incentive enough to seek out a recording of his Third Symphony which is said to be Ropartz's masterpiece. There happens to be a new recording on the Timpani label, remarkably enough conducted by Jean-Yves Ossonce who did so well on the Hyperion release of Magnard symphonies.

The performance by the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy led by Michel Piquemal is serviceable. The recording is unexceptional.