Henri Dutilleux

[peterthekeys]

at the end of one of the symphonies (think it's the first) the music suddenly focuses on an extraordinary enigmatic chord, which hangs in the air like a dark shadow and recurs again and again

I was wrong - this bit comes at the end of the second symphony. They played the first movement yesterday - shame that they couldn't fit in the whole work.

I've just checked this with my CD of the two symphonies (BBC Phil under Yan Pascal Tortelier) - and I've now got the chord in my mind, and it won't go away! (It's not a particularly complex chord - think it's just the triads of C sharp minor and F sharp major superimposed. It's just the amazing, haunting way in which it's used. The word "Doppelganger" definitely comes to mind in connection with this passage - and given the subtitle "Le Double", it's probably not inappropriate.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And surely a soupçon of Szymanowski, too (I'd love to have heard Ronald Schtevenschon schay that!)...

Add a pinch or two (to taste) of Rousschel, too.

[Serial_Apologist]

And surely a soupçon of Szymanowski, too (I'd love to have heard Ronald Schtevenschon schay that!)...

I was just thinking that when listening to the ending of the Violin Concerto earlier: shurely with those orchestral effects in mind he must have been aware of Szymanowsky's first VC?

Possibly one of the reasons I like Dutilleux so much is that he draws unexpected connections between what one might think of as the most unlikely of composers, people we mght have been led to think of as being poles apart - aesthetically, that is! - rather as Frank Bridge did in his time. Alexander Goehr is another.

[ahinton]

Add a pinch or two (to taste) of Rousschel, too.

Oh, yesch, indeed! Another remarkable French composer who has yet to receive his due and who, incidentally, studied harmony with Dutilleux's grandfather Julien Koszul when in his mid-20s...

[ahinton]

I was just thinking that when listening to the ending of the Violin Concerto earlier: shurely with those orchestral effects in mind he must have been aware of Szymanowsky's first VC?

Possibly one of the reasons I like Dutilleux so much is that he draws unexpected connections between what one might think of as the most unlikely of composers, people we mght have been led to think of as being poles apart - aesthetically, that is! - rather as Frank Bridge did in his time. Alexander Goehr is another.

Yes and yes! Mind you, I recall Colin Matthews saying to me of the Szymanowski first violin concerto after the première of his own violin concerto in 2009 that this is how to write a violin concerto! - maybe Dutilleux (whom Colin knew quite well) had likewise espoused some sense of that and the sheer colour and sensuousness of so much of his music, especially his violin concerto, might make this seem unsurprising. Incidentally, if I have a favourite among Dutilleux's works, it is that concerto.

Your other observation about those connections is fascinating; I might add to it Dutilleux' not infrequent recourse to octatonically-oriented music which just occasonally gives rise to flashes of Messiaen! (I do wonder if some of these were as tongue-in-cheek as they can be wont to sound - or what Messiaen himself made of them, as he could surely not have avoided noticing them?), although plenty of other composers have done the same or similar in very different ways - the D-S-C-H motif is, after all, half of an octatonic scale and I've heard octatonic references in the music of David Matthews, so its continuing wide diversity of application must count for something!

[Roslynmuse]

Add a pinch or two (to taste) of Rousschel, too.

The last time Dutilleux was CotW (I think) was in the summer of 1989 when he shared his moment in the limelight with Roussel. Can anyone explain why he (Roussel) is so under-performed? And why, when he is, we only hear Bacchus et Ariane, Le festin de l'araignée or the 3rd (and very occasionally 4th) Symphony? I think the 2nd Symphony is a wonderful piece, as is Pour une fete de printemps, which was originally intended to be a part of it. And the short Piano Concerto deserves to be heard too. Sorry, off-topic, but worth mentioning in this context, I think.

[pastoralguy]

The last time Dutilleux was CotW (I think) was in the summer of 1989 when he shared his moment in the limelight with Roussel. Can anyone explain why he (Roussel) is so under-performed? And why, when he is, we only hear Bacchus et Ariane, Le festin de l'araignée or the 3rd (and very occasionally 4th) Symphony? I think the 2nd Symphony is a wonderful piece, as is Pour une fete de printemps, which was originally intended to be a part of it. And the short Piano Concerto deserves to be heard too. Sorry, off-topic, but worth mentioning in this context, I think.

Well, the RSNO's previous Music Director, Stefan Denueve, was a big Roussel fan and played his music regularly including a cycle of the symphonies. To be honest, I and my friends who attended found the music Un-memorable and a bit thin. Denueve and the Orchestra did record a lot of his music for Naxos but I found a lot of these discs appearing in charity shops!

[Colonel Danby]

I saw Dutilleux quite a few times at the Proms, me in the front row of the arena while he was in the composer seat in the stalls: I never to picked up the nerve to get his autograph (unlike Elliott Carter, who must have been at least 100, and we got his script encouraged by Sandy Goehr, of all people. What a marvellous night!)

But I've had the 1st Symphony and `Timbres' on Harmonia Mundi for years, and I think he is big: the heir to Debussy? Perhaps...

[Roslynmuse]

Well, the RSNO's previous Music Director, Stefan Denueve, was a big Roussel fan and played his music regularly including a cycle of the symphonies. To be honest, I and my friends who attended found the music Un-memorable and a bit thin. Denueve and the Orchestra did record a lot of his music for Naxos but I did find a lot of these discs appearing in charity shops!

I've got those CDs and very good they are too; many of the pieces definitely repay repeated listening!

[Serial_Apologist]

The last time Dutilleux was CotW (I think) was in the summer of 1989 when he shared his moment in the limelight with Roussel. Can anyone explain why he (Roussel) is so under-performed? And why, when he is, we only hear Bacchus et Ariane, Le festin de l'araignée or the 3rd (and very occasionally 4th) Symphony? I think the 2nd Symphony is a wonderful piece, as is Pour une fete de printemps, which was originally intended to be a part of it. And the short Piano Concerto deserves to be heard too. Sorry, off-topic, but worth mentioning in this context, I think.

David Drew, way back in 1960 in his chapter contribution to Howard Hartog's "European Music in the Twentieth Century", made the point that as an older (than Ravel) composer, Roussel would have been regarded by his younger contemporaries of the 1920s and 1930s as "vieux jeu", with its footings and semi-post Germanic procedures in Faure and the Franck school, lack of attention to orchestral colour after the handful of pre-WWI impressionistic scores, and inability to conjure up memorable melodies. 1960 was a time when the post-Roussel, Satie/Cocteau/Stravinsky-influenced generation including Les Six was two stages back, and attention was on Messiaen and La Domaine Musicale. Inaccurate though the Drew summation of the "worthy" Roussel was in 1960 (nuff said) his alleged inattention to colour did not prevent a number of composers from modelling symphonies and other orchestral and chamber musics on Roussellian principles while absorbing his harmonic language and taking their ideas about scoring from Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky: in France, Ibert, Honegger, Jolivet, and the totally neglected outside France (probably because of this) Marcel Landowsky, together with Dutilleux; and outside France, Martinu and, believe it or not, Lutoslawsky, depicted photographed in company with Dutilleux (and Rostropovitch) on the cover of their respective cello concertos' LP. Perhaps the great American Samuel Barber could be included here as a Roussellian. Be that as it may, Roussel handed on his capacity for adapting advanced idioms to an approach from many angles deeply rooted in traditional practices long believed to be "foreign" to the French musical temperament.

[pastoralguy]

I've got those CDs and very good they are too; many of the pieces definitely repay repeated listening!

I do have them so I'll give them another spin.

[peterthekeys]

Can anyone explain why he (Roussel) is so under-performed?

Something which has often baffled me also - his music is so original, and of such consistently high quality. I guess that it's the same as over here - one or two composers just happening to be in the right place at the right time, and eclipsing all the others who unfortunately were not. (I'd also love to hear more of the works of Koechlin, Florent Schmitt, d'Indy, Magnard, and the obscurer members of Les Six. And that's just for starters.)

Not a lot of hope from the point of view of R3, given that the powers-that-be seem to be convinced that what the listeners want is just to hear the same things again - and again - and again

[BBMmk2]

The first Dutilleux I bought was the 4-disc Chandos with Tortelier. How grateful I was to have fine & freshly-read recordings of this marvellous music in one place at last! Before this it had only been off-air on a TDK....

The recorded sound of these discs is rather superlative, imo. YPT and the BBCPO give us performances that match this as well. An indispensable collection of this composer's music

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've got those CDs and very good they are too; many of the pieces definitely repay repeated listening!

- Having spent last year getting more familiar with the four Symphonies of Magnard (wonderful, wonderful works), I have this year embarked on a similar listening project with the symphonies of Roussel. Already I can confirm that repeated listening does indeed reveal increasing rewards and whole-heartedly encourage pasty in his re-listening

Lutoslawski took every opportunity to express his admiration for and indebtedness to the Music of Roussel - every conference at which he was present whenever someone listed his "influences" (Bartok, Debussy, Stravinsky, Varese) they would always miss out Roussel, and he would make the point of adding his name to the list. Whether Lutos knew Duti's Passacaglia movement (they do sound remarkably similar) - he never mentioned it (AFAIK) and he was a scrupulously generous and fair-minded man; it's not impossible, but knowledge of foreign contemporary Music was very thin in Poland in the early '50s (by the middle of the decade things had greatly improved, and in 1959, Lutos was the first Polish composer to have a place on the ISCM committee) - even hearing Bartok was a hit-and-miss affair.

[jayne lee wilson]

The last time Dutilleux was CotW (I think) was in the summer of 1989 when he shared his moment in the limelight with Roussel. Can anyone explain why he (Roussel) is so under-performed? And why, when he is, we only hear Bacchus et Ariane, Le festin de l'araignée or the 3rd (and very occasionally 4th) Symphony? I think the 2nd Symphony is a wonderful piece, as is Pour une fete de printemps, which was originally intended to be a part of it. And the short Piano Concerto deserves to be heard too. Sorry, off-topic, but worth mentioning in this context, I think.

Three of the best works (incl. the piano concerto), in the best performances I know (I have almost all the extant Roussel Symphony recordings...!)...
This Cypres CD had few if any reviews. Poeme de la Foret is gloriously, glowingly done... no other recording comes close save for Eschenbach, but he's just a little too indulgent of its sensualities...
[[/I]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-No-...roussel+cypres

Don't forget Padmavati too as, like Dutilleux, Roussel's orchestral outout is quite small; but the EMI reissue has no libretto; you'll have to get the original 2ndhand for that....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Albert-Roussel-Padmavati-Marylyn-Horne/dp/B000NB6GD6/ref=sr_1_4?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1453392732&sr=1-4&keywords=roussel+padmavati

I've been living with the Arte Nova 3-disc edition of Dutilleux (ORCHESTRE NATIONAL BORDEAUX AQUITAINE/HANS GRAF), for the last week or two, and very fine they are.
Soloist in Tout un Monde is Queyras, who I just noticed was soloist in last night's live one; with Graf at least, he truly speaks through his instrument with completely unrhetorical purity and poetry. One of the best I've heard, but that's true of the whole set. Graf has a marvellously natural feel for the longer-term flow and shape of the symphonies, and his 2nd is for me second only to the recent, fabulous, hi-res Seattle Morlot. Graf has his violins separated antiphonally, dbs centre-left etc., which creates some lovely dialoguing in No.1. (Although when I compared the scherzo with Tortelier, his violins, all on the left, do have the greater rhythmic bite and attack; so as usual you need both...)

As Roger Nichols remarked of No.1 back in the day, Tortelier's Chandos sound has more space & brilliance; but I often preferred the warmth, natural flow, and sheer atmosphere of Graf's readings, especially in Tree of Dreams - with the same soloist (Charlier) as on Chandos/Tortelier.
The Arte Nova discs vary a touch in sound - No.2 is fresher & more open, most strikingly in the one lossless download available at Qobuz. Notably fresher and sharper, it almost sounds like an unofficial remaster. Very well done! Well worth the extra cost over the cheap 2ndhand Art Nova CDs, great bargains though these are....

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=arte+nova+dutilleux

(Get the original-issue ones with the composer-photos on - some Arte Nova reissues haven't sounded so good in the past..)