Debussy: La Damoiselle Elue

La Damoiselle Elue is a ravishing piece which is often overlooked in Debussy's output. He wrote it when he was 'doing time' at the Villa Medici in Rome, as winner of the Prix de Rome, in 1887-88. It's a short cantata (19', but it sounds longer) for orchestra, choir, soprano and alto set to Dante Gabriel Rossetti's famous poem The Blessed Damozel.

I know the work well as I used to listen to it quite often in a CBS recording featuring Frederica von Stade and the Boston SO led by Ozawa. However, I have no idea where that LP or CD is now. It's not in my collection anymore. My father doesn't have it either. Maybe it was one of the few LPs I sold in the early 1980s when I switched to the CD format. Pity as it now has disappeared from the catalogue. The recent Sony boxed collection of Debussy works sadly features the version with Salonen. Meanwhile I ordered a cheap second hand copy of the LP online.

Anyway, with the Orfeo recording I'm quite sure to have a very good version on hand. It's a 1981 recording with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart led by Gary Bertini. Ileana Cotrubas' fragile and silvery soprano is well cast as the Damozel. The little known Glenda Maurice takes a rather grand view of the reciter's role (there is a very nice testimonial by Maurice about the 'forced detours' in her life here). The recording offers all one could wish for in this piece: restrained and stylish but lively orchestral playing, a great key soloist, a good choir and a more than decent sound.

The same can't be said of the Salonen version, which I find dull and laboured. Tempos are misjudged as too slow. Salonen spotlights the many felicities in this score as a pedantic schoolmaster. Paula Rasmussen as reciter is a small disaster because she seems unsteady and shrill. Dawn Upshaw is not able to save the house. She goes along in Salonen's didactic approach, robbing the piece of its peculiar, antiquish freshness. The choir sounds stodgy and uninvolved. The recording, finally, is texturally boring, colourless and constricted in dynamics. All in all a CD that I wouldn't recommend as neither the Nocturnes nor the symphonic fragments from the Martyre are able to tilt the balance.

The DGG Debussy Edition also includes a version of La Damoiselle Elue. Interestingly, it's a version for piano and voices, recorded in 1994, that DGG licensed from Ades. Philippe Cassard is at the piano, Véronique Dietschy sings the Damozel and Doris Lamprecht is the reciter. I didn't expect too much of this recording as it seemed irresponsible to rob this piece from its superb orchestral garb. But it turns out remarkably well. The start is not very auspicious as Cassard plays the long instrumental introduction at a tempo that seems as ponderous as Salonen's. But the liveliness of the small, very present choir and the stylish, serious voice of Dietschy provide sufficient counterweight for the measured tempo. Lamprecht's contribution is, unfortunately, not very memorable. I have not been able to find a lot of info on Veronique Dietschy but she seemed to have been a striking artist (she pops up in cameo roles for a number of 1980s movies as well). I look forward to listening to the CD with Debussy's songs (Mélodies), also included in the DGG box. Altogether this is a very interesting recording of this Poéme lyrique to which I will gladly return.

Händel: Harpsichord Suites HWV 427, 429, 430, 433

A few months ago, ECM issued a double CD with recordings of Händel's Eight Great Suites for harpsichord, played on a modern piano by Lisa Smirnova. I had never heard of this artist before. Her discography is apparently very limited. But according to her website she was barely 20 when she played in Carnegie Hall. And in 1993 she was awarded the Brahmspreis with which she is in very illustrious company indeed. These suites have been recorded over the years 2007-2009.

I've listened to the first disc of this collection numerous times over the past few weeks, in the car and on the speakers, and I must say that I'm not terribly captivated by it. To be sure, the playing is accomplished and tasteful and provides a perfect aural backdrop for all kinds of mundane tasks that do not ask for too much concentration. But there is to my mind nothing that seems to probe a little deeper and forces the listener to sit up and pay attention. And that's sadly about all I can say about it. 

Debussy: Violin Sonata - Cello Sonata - Sonata for Flute, Alto and Harp

 It's not that Debussy has disappeared into the background. A few weeks ago we spent a day in Paris, visiting two exhibitions that throw an interesting light on the man and the city and culture in which he lived. At the Musée de l'Orangerie, a subsidiary of the Orsay museum, there is an elaborate exhibition on the relationship between Debussy and the visual and literary arts of his times ('Debussy. Musique et les Arts', running until June 11th). On display are a rich collection of works by painters such as Degas, Redon, Vuillard, Munch, Klimt, Turner, and many others. In addition: japanese prints and objects from Debussy's own collection, his writing desk, manuscripts, letters and notes. I didn't buy the catalogue as Jean-Michel Nectoux' Harmonie en Bleu et Or covers more or less the same terrain. Another exhibition is on display at the Musée Carnavalet, the museum of the history of the city of Paris. 240 prints by the Parisian photographer Eugène Atget cover the time frame (1880-1920) in which Debussy lived in the city. Fascinating to see how different and yet how similar the city presented itself. The street vendors, shops, bars, courtyards, marble statues etc we can easily picture in the contemporary city as well. Atget's provides a microscopic, highly textured view of the city. The great urbanistic movements (the vast increase in the number of cars, the construction of the metro, the improvement of sanitary infrastructure, the rise of good quality social housing etc.) are not captured by his lens.

In addition, I have been reading up on French history from the Franco-Prussian war onwards. Mary McAuliffe's Dawn of the Belle Epoque provides a disjointed but ultimately interesting narrative of the turbulent times of the war, the ensuing revolt of the Commune and the uneasy political and cultural climate that dominated the decades up to the First World War. At this point I'm reading Ian Ousby's impressive book on the battle of Verdun (where we were just a week ago) which frames this cataclysmic event in the political and cultural climate of the interwar years. All this underscores how complex and layered the setting is in which a composer such as Debussy emerged.

At the occasion of the 150th anniversary both Sony and DGG have issued attractive box collections that span a great swath of Debussy's oeuvre. I have just relistened to the three late sonatas which originally triggered my interest in this composer. In the DGG box, the Violin Sonata is performed by Augustin Dumay and Maria Joao Pires. It's an intensely romantic reading which is to my mind a little bit too polished. Isaac Stern, in the Sony collection, provides a startling contrast. He performs the music as a genuine 'war sonata' with a clenched teeth kind of fervor. Maybe just a touch of poetry would have been welcome to soften the hard, angular lines, but all in all it's a great reading that will count amongst my favourites. Let's not forget that 1916 was Debussy's 'annus horribilis': he was recovering from the surgery to cure his rectal cancer, causing him debilitating pain during the first months of the year. Meanwhile, the war was raging at its most blindly destructive (Germans unleashed the Verdun attack on February 21st 1916). And Debussy was struggling acutely with financial worries and a lack of elementary provisions (such as coal). The correspondence of those early months in 1916 reveal the difficulties with which Debussy wrestling and how close he must have been at times to killing himself. Stern's uncompromising reading seems to adequately reflect the deep despair of those days.

In the DGG Cello Sonata we hear Argerich and Maisky. I've heard this recording before and didn't like it. Indeed, it's a far too self-indulgent performance, particularly on the part of Maisky, who seems only intent on showcasing his capacity for expressive extravaganzas. To be avoided. Again, the recording in the Sony box is preferable (and in this case vastly so). Lynn Harrel and James Levine (on the piano) provide a rather soft-grained but very tasteful reading of the sonata. Maybe not a recording that raises eyebrows but I could imagine living with it.

Finally, there is the elusive Sonate en trio. Both collections provide us there with excellent readings, with the DGG ensemble (Wolfgang Schulz, Wolfram Christ, Margit-Anna Süss) capturing the dreamy atmosphere to perfection. In the Sony box it's James Galway who is taking the flute part, complemented by Marisa Robles on harp and Graham Oppenheimer on viola. Remarkably enough the booklet lists the sonata as being 'arranged and orchestrated by James Galway' and supported by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. I can hear the orchestra clearly in the following Danse Sacrée and Danse Profane, but not in the Sonate en trio which seems to stick to the original.

Wagemans: De Zevende Symfonie

I've been listening to Peter-Jan Wagemans' marvelous Seventh Symphony on and off for over two months. Now it's time to summarise my impressions.

I discovered Wagemans a few months ago via Dutch radio 4's on-line Concerthuis. His 'Dreams. (What did the last dinosaur dream of?)' struck me as a serious and accomplished piece. A little bit of internet research led me to a very complimentary review of Wagemans' Seventh Symphony by a serious German listener. This piece seemed worth a little gamble. And how it has paid off!

Wagemans (born 1952) is a composer that has sought a middle way between abstract modernism and the trappings of all kinds of vapid post-minimal-/ modern-/ romantic-isms. It's the kind of 'third way' that I personally, as a listener, am also most interested in. I'm seeking out contemporary music that in some way connects to the great symphonic tradition of the 18th, 19th and 20th century as, for me, intuitable architecture in music is paramount. I'm still wedded to the idea of music as 'tönend bewegte Formen' (Hanslick) that I can try to grasp. I don't mind these forms being disjointed and layered. Quite to the contrary, this makes the process of internalising a work all the more interesting. But somewhere I need to be able to detect that epic sweep that is so fundamental to the conception of symphonic form that has been transmitted to us. In that sense Wagemans' idiom speaks very eloquently to me. On his website the composer writes that his aim has always been to write music that intellectually and emotionally would be graspable by someone who is thoroughly familiar with Mahler's Sixth. His Zevende Symfonie is an impressive testimonial of his ability to achieve this goal in a masterly fashion.

De Zevende Symfonie is a big symphony, in conception and duration. The live performance taped for this Etcetera CD runs to 52 minutes. There are five movements, all of them with suggestive titles that help us to trace out the cultural and philosophical ambit of this formidable work:

1. Über 'm Sternenzelt (a reference to Beethoven's Ninth) [15:04]
2. Het zwarte licht en het heldere duister [08:47]
3. Mehr Licht! (allegedly Goethe's last words) [13:06]
4. De toekomst bedrijft sodomie met de hoornen van zijn eigen herinnering (a reference to a Dali painting) [13:06]
5. Het grote lied [12:55]

A sentence from Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel Mort à credit (1936) is inscribed at the head of the symphony: "There is no tenderness in this world, only legends, all kingdoms end in a dream." This ambiguous mixture of transgression and transcendence puts us in the right mood to dive into the piece.

I'm taking an awful shortcut by suggesting that, musically, the symphony is some sort of 'Messiaen meets mature Mahler'. But in contrast with Tyberg's Third, for example, Wagemans' idiom doesn't strike me as derivative. It sounds distinctively like his own. Nevertheless, the spectre of Messiaen and Mahler does hover over the vast musical expanses of this symphony. The mixture of Latin wonderment and Germanic Angst is, however, very compelling.

Formally, the 5-movement structure confronts us with a puzzle. Is it a traditional 4-movement symphonic structure with a short interlude (4th movt) opportunistically thrown in to psychologically create more space between two big movements? Or is it something more sui generis that doesn't orient itself towards the traditional schemata? For example, we might consider the work as one large slow movement (an Adagio, if you will, spanned by movts 1, 3 and 5) punctured by two noisy interludes (2nd and 4th movts). The more I'm listening to it, the more the latter approach strikes me as the most satisfying.

The first movement is an intriguing curtain-raiser. The basic tempo is slow and the general mood is anticipatory. Abundant percussion (glockenspiel, and much more) and raucous, unisono strings and winds choruses remind us of Messiaen's sound world. But there are fascinating, fleeting intimations of a darkly hued, Wagnerian, pastoral world as well (Siegried's Waldweben come to mind, or Parsifal first act) pointing towards a deeply buried hymnic undercurrent which drifts stealthily by. One could listen to this as an oblique night music, with the energetic and bright percussion as celestial bodies careening in vast and dark expanses stretched out by the lower strings and winds. Formally, this first movement is the most challenging to get a handle on, I find. If there are references to Beethoven's Choral Symphony, I can't hear them. However, the writing is tremendously assured and this movement alone could stand a virtuosic symphonic essay.

The second movement is an explosive, unrelenting scherzo that seems to be propelled forward by massive, stuttering rhythms in the unisono brass (another Messiaenic fingerprint). Think Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine, but then bigger. As the movement progresses it becomes wilder and more disjointed until it runs itself aground in a sequence of colossal glissandos, like a dinosaur dying.

The third movement starts in an exploratory, disoriented way. Dreamy sections alternate with short, violent eruptions in the lower brass. At one point the music settles in a slow march with the lower strings lumbering menacingly along. This gives way to a spine-tingling passage with Wagner tubas chanting a dark chorale that is taken over by the full string and brass section. It's as if we have entered a gate into another world. Textures brighten and a high trumpet leads into a tranquil, paradisiac garden where only the very highest strings weave a solemn melody. We're not far from the otherworldly atmosphere of Mahler's Tenth. The movement ends in a mood of undisturbed, serious bliss.

The relatively short fourth movement starts as an Ivesian pastiche of children songs, festive band flourishes, and reminiscences of Isolde's Liebestod. Suddenly the music switches mood to an impassioned question, almost a plea, from the full orchestra. After that the jollity is more subdued.

The finale opens as a majestic chorale on unisono strings underpinned by lower brass and wind choruses. Again those typical, Messiaen-like stained-glass harmonies. It's achingly beautiful. The music becomes more animated but the darkly intoning brass keep proceedings in check. The mood of the first two movements, however, breaks through in a rambunctious and mocking angelic dance. There is a moment of collapse and one wonders whether the symphony will be able to get on its feet again. It does. The chorale, of otherworldly beauty (not saccharine, rather tormented) emerges again and Wagemans superimposes it with a cosmic, Mephistophelian laughter from the tutti. An angry fortissimo chord brings the work to an end.

This überdimensional 'Also Sprach Zarathustra'-like tone poem has captured my imagination. It's serious, audacious music that strikes out on its own path, seemingly undisturbed by ideological battles or market forces. The live recording (taped from a single concert) by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra led by the young conductor Hans Leenders is astonishingly good. They seem to play it as if they have had the piece in their bones for ages. Technically, the recording leaves nothing to be desired. It sonically showcases this complex piece in the most advantageous way possible. Great work from all involved.

Nyman: MGV - Piano Concerto

This is the first thing I hear by Michael Nyman. However, MGV (Musique à Grande Vitesse: a rather facile word play on Train à Grande Vitesse) is a piece that has garnered rave reviews, also from experienced listeners. Another reason why I was intrigued is that Alexander Balanescu, leader of the eponymous quartet ensemble, has been the leader of the Michael Nyman Band. I will always cherish the recordings of Volans' and Bryars' quartets by these musicians. So I was happy to give it a go. The music has originally been recorded for an Argo release but apparently Nyman himself bougt back the rights and now they are distributed under his own label MN Records.

MGV is, as the name suggests, on occasional piece, written for the inauguration of the TGV North European line in 1993. It takes a high-speed train journey that moves through different regions as a suggestive starting point. The Piano Concerto is compiled from Nyman's soundtrack for Jane Campion's famous 1993 movie 'The Piano'. 

I can be very brief about the musical merits of these compositions. Here we are on the bland side of minimalism. The propulsive rhythms and idiosyncratic orchestration (strings and saxophones, essentially) are fine for about 10 minutes but from that point onwards it becomes a very wearisome affair. MGV goes on for almost half an hour. Also the concerto shrinks to an undifferentiated blur of saccharine harmonies, melodic clichés and an impenetrable instrumental fabric within which an impossibly hectic solo voice is buried (bravo Kathryn Stott). The concerto takes an immodest 32 minutes to make its case. The programme is very badly recorded to boot, which surprises me as Argo has been a Decca subsidiary. The sound is shrill and thin and fatiguing to listen to at somewhat higher volume. A disappointment. I won't be quickly returning to this recording. 

Tyberg: Symphony nr. 3

Prior to this CD's appearance in 2010 in the Naxos catalogue, the composer Marcel Tyberg was a totally unknown figure in recent musical history. Tyberg was an Austrian of partly Jewish descent who sadly perished in Auschwitz on New Year's Eve in 1944. Shortly before his abduction by the Nazis he entrusted his collection of manuscripts to an Italian pupil for safekeeping. Nothing happened with them and they were transferred to the ownership of the pupil's son who settled in Buffalo as a medical specialist. In 2005 he contacted JoAnn Falletta, chief conductor of the Buffalo PO, who decided the music was serious enough to embark, with members of the orchestra, on a time-consuming process of copying out and correcting the parts of the Third Symphony. Eventually they were able to present the work for the first time to the world in 2010. Naxos was courageous enough to want to record it. The story can be read in somewhat more detail here.

The Third Symphony must have been one of Tyberg's very late works, written in the late 1930s. It runs to 37 minutes and is traditionally laid out in four movements - an introductory allegro, a scherzo, adagio and concluding rondo finale (full performance on Youtube here). The musical language is unabashedly epigonic, with constant reminders of Bruckner's and Mahler's idiom. The opening of the symphony features a solo tenor tuba which transports us right back to Mahler's Seventh or Third. The remainder of the movement sounds totally Bruckner (say Third Symphony) with characteristic organ-like orchestration, block-like architecture and rustic melodies. The Scherzo might have been lifted straight out of an as yet undiscovered Mahler symphony. The Adagio is likely the most distinctive movement of all. It's quite beautiful, elegiac movement that is quite effectively scored. If Tyberg would have made it to the US he might have cut a good figure as composer for the white screen. The finale is a boisterous rondo which breathes the pastoral air from some of Dvorak's furiant-based symphonic movements and dances.

The Third Symphony is perhaps not a mindblowing masterpiece, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a pleasure to listen to. In fact, it is thoroughly enjoyable. Despite its lack of originality the symphony comes across as a balanced whole, with well proportioned movements, adequately distinctive melodic material, dense but skillful orchestration and a pleasing (if not genuinely adventurous) harmonic landscape. I would put it a couple of notches under Magnard's Fourth and even a notch under Guridi's Sinfonia Pyrenaica and Biarent's Symphonie (to name a few examples of less well known symphonic repertoire that I've explored over the previous months).

The performance by the Buffalo PO led by JoAnne Falletta is thoroughly engaged. The Naxos recording lacks a realistic spatial perspective but is adequate.

Horner: Film music

I've been relistening to a CD that has unintentionally migrated from my father's collection into mine. I really need to send it back to him. And I need to buy my own copy because this collection of film tunes is great fun. A tremendously impressive recording from the Telarc studios it is too. There are two highlights amongst these 14 tracks. I never seem to tire of James Horner's schmaltzy and elegiac music for the 1985 feature film Cocoon. Typical American Edelkitsch, likely, but its a product of great craftmanship (of a barely 30-year old composer). A beautiful theme, stirringly developed and brilliantly orchestrated (with a trumpet voice that reminds me of Hovhaness' Mysterious Mountain). Also his soundtrack for the second Star Trek movie (The Wrath of Khan) is always a pleasure to hear (with Leonard Nimoy voice-over). The other piece on this collection that I keep returning to is Bill Conti's march from his music for Philip Kaufman's 1983 epic The Right Stuff. I've always loved this movie (must have seen it at least four times) and Conti's radiant and soldierly music is the perfect foil for it. It craftily wraps a highly strung, jubilant theme (introduced in melancholy shades by a beautiful solo for cor anglais) in a no-holds-barred 'right stuffish' march.

There are more great tracks in this varied collection. John William's Planet Krypton from Superman is a terrific opener. Also Don Dorsey's all-synthesizer Dimensions is a great hifi demonstration piece. And then there is one track with live recordings of humpback whale songs which are eerily beautiful. All in all a delightful disc that doesn't wear thin.