Henri Dutilleux

[Bax-of-Delights]

Half-way through the week and yet no thread on Henri Dutilleux...?

I confess I hadn't heard much of Dutilleux's music over the years on R3 but was drawn to the CoTW programmes by Tom Service's much repeated advert plug (and, if I might add, somewhat over-hyped description of the composer).

Now that we have a chance of listening to the Cello Concerto back to back - on CotW and then immediately after on the evening concert (bizarre programming?). Any thoughts?

Not entirely convinced of the R3 description as one of the most important composers of the 20th century - there'd be any number of other contenders surely - but I'd certainly investigate his music further.

[pastoralguy]

I was much impressed by what I heard of his first symphony and have ordered a cd of the 1st and 2nd symphonies.

Some time ago, I did make an effort to listen to his violin and 'cello concertos but, frankly, found them quite impenetrable.

Let's see how this week goes.

[BBMmk2]

Shame on me not to have thought of starting the thread. thank you BaxofDelights! I listened to the and still am, to the concert on Radio 3 this evening. Very good performance of the cello concerto. On par with Rostropovich, in imo.

[notnerb]

Shame on me not to have thought of starting the thread. thank you BaxofDelights! I listened to the and still am, to the concert on Radio 3 this evening. Very good performance of the cello concerto. On par with Rostropovich, in imo.

Yes, but it followed straight after CotW had played the Rostropovich!!! Strange programming (and I think rather embarrassing for the BBC); but good to hear both performances anyway and glad Dutilleux has made it to CotW in the first place.

[jayne lee wilson]

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....

I'd always clicked with the symphonies and the two concertos, but coming back to it this month and saturating ears & brain with it, it struck me: first, how many hearings it took before the shapes and musical ideas of each piece truly caught in the nagging memory; and how the same applies to perceiving interpretative differences. BUT how wonderfully rewarding when it comes together! Take the slow movement of No.1: after the strings' elegiac opening (with a distant piano darkening the mood), listen for how their 3-note phrase is sung again by a high bassoon, then a solo horn, becoming 4 notes, then 5, then varying its shape within a continuous contrapuntal flow; much of Dutilleux' music moves in such a way, and those short bassoon and horn entries only make their strongest emotional impact when you've heard them a few times, start to haunt you away from the listening; they can seem insignificant at first....

(Incidentally - has anyone else ever felt the connection between Symphony No.1's passacaille (1951), and the one which starts the finale of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra (1954)? The atmosphere is quite close initially, those wind solos, the sudden brass outbursts.... Luto's sounds almost as an hommage, until it takes off on its own sensational (& more superficial ) journey....

This music is very intricately put together from mainly short motifs and themes, but still the principle of reward for repeated hearings is as true - well, truer - than with most. Do try to persist, and hear as many readings as you can.

(Note to Radio 3: checking RT scheds, quite WHAT was the point of playing JUST THE FIRST TWO MOVEMENTS of Symphony No.1? Or just ONE movement from No.2? I haven't heard the programmes & hope they are wellpresented...)

[Roslynmuse]

(Incidentally - has anyone else ever felt the connection between Symphony No.1's passacaille (1951), and the one which starts the finale of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra (1954)? The atmosphere is quite close initially, those wind solos, the sudden brass outbursts.... Luto's sounds almost as an hommage, until it takes off on its own sensational (& more superficial ) journey....


[/I]

Yes! I wonder if Lutoslawski would have had the opportunity to hear the Dutilleux? I don't know the performance/broadcast history of the piece.

I was lucky enough to be present at some of the live performances that were given at the time that some of these pieces were recorded - certainly the two symphonies (No 1 at the old Free Trade Hall, No 2 at the RNCM) and the Violin Concerto and Mystere de l'instant at Studio 7 (now demolished and the space used as a car park...)

A few years later, 1996, when the Bridgewater Hall opened, there was a Dutilleux/Berlioz festival but unfortunately some of the concerts were moved to the RNCM as so few tickets had been sold. Dutilleux was in attendance for at least one of these concerts. I remember student performances including Les citations and the Quatre mélodies; Peter Hill (again in Studio 7) playing the three Préludes (plus one of Messiaen's Catalogue d'oiseaux - possibly Le traquet stapazin?), and a woefully thin turnout for a Berlioz programme consisting of Waverley, La mort de Cléopatre and Harold en Italie. (The double-bill of Symphonie fantastique and Lélio was better attended).

[ahinton]

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....

I'd always clicked with the symphonies and the two concertos, but coming back to it this month and saturating ears & brain with it, it struck me: first, how many hearings it took before the shapes and musical ideas of each piece truly caught in the nagging memory; and how the same applies to perceiving interpretative differences. BUT how wonderfully rewarding when it comes together! Take the slow movement of No.1: after the strings' elegiac opening (with a distant piano darkening the mood), listen for how their 3-note phrase is sung again by a high bassoon, then a solo horn, becoming 4 notes, then 5, then varying its shape within a continuous contrapuntal flow; much of Dutilleux' music moves in such a way, and those short bassoon and horn entries only make their strongest emotional impact when you've heard them a few times, start to haunt you away from the listening; they can seem insignificant at first....

(Incidentally - has anyone else ever felt the connection between Symphony No.1's passacaille (1951), and the one which starts the finale of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra (1954)? The atmosphere is quite close initially, those wind solos, the sudden brass outbursts.... Luto's sounds almost as an hommage, until it takes off on its own sensational (& more superficial ) journey....

This music is very intricately put together from mainly short motifs and themes, but still the principle of reward for repeated hearings is as true - well, truer - than with most. Do try to persist, and hear as many readings as you can.

(Note to Radio 3: checking RT scheds, quite WHAT was the point of playing JUST THE FIRST TWO MOVEMENTS of Symphony No.1? Or just ONE movement from No.2? I haven't heard the programmes & hope they are wellpresented...)

What an excellent response to this magical music! - and yes, I know that CotW's only around an hour but truncating each of the two symphonies (oh, if only he;d written at least one more much later in life!) is as unforgivable as Boulez's initial attitude to the composer! The programme duration didn't stop them broadcasting the entire cello concerto anyway...

You references to Luto are fascinating; coincidentally, I have indeed wondered about their respective use of passacaglias but I've no idea whether Luto knew Dutilleux's first symphony at the time of writing his Concerto for orchestra. Is that journey really superficial by comparison? Hmmm. Different, yes. More exuberant, yes. But more superficial?...

[ardcarp]

Has anyone mentioned that HD was discussed under Record Review a couple of weeks ago?

I too am enjoying [the parts I've heard of] CotW, and can't believe HD is so little known to the wider musical public....which includes me. Is it simply a question of his being overshadowed by the two very different giant figures of Boulez and Messiaen?

[ahinton]

Has anyone mentioned that HD was discussed under Record Review a couple of weeks ago?

I too am enjoying [the parts I've heard of] CotW, and can't believe HD is so little known to the wider musical public....which includes me. Is it simply a question of his being overshadowed by the two very different giant figures of Boulez and Messiaen?

That's certainly my view; Messiaen, some seven years Dutilleux's senior and Boulez, some seven years his junior, have each enjoyed a great deal more exposure than Dutilleux himself, yet the quality and consistency of Dutilleux's output, small as it is for a composer who almost reached his centenary, makes this most perplexing. At least Dutilleux enjoyed considerably better relations with Messiaen than he did (at least until later life) with Boulez!

I've probably written this before, but I regard Dutilleux as the gretest French composer since Ravel. OK, howls of protest may now commence...

[Bax-of-Delights]

That's certainly my view; Messiaen, some seven years Dutilleux's senior and Boulez, some seven years his junior, have each enjoyed a great deal more exposure than Dutilleux himself, yet the quality and consistency of Dutilleux's output, small as it is for a composer who almost reached his centenary, makes this most perplexing. At least Dutilleux enjoyed considerably better relations with Messiaen than he did (at least until later life) with Boulez!

I've probably written this before, but I regard Dutilleux as the gretest French composer since Ravel. OK, howls of protest may now commence...

I might posit Poulenc as a contender for that role, ahinton, but certainly my love affair with Messiaen's music in my youth has worn off latterly. Having recently acquired almost the complete Messiaen oeuvre on CD in recent weeks (I am a buyer and seller of libraries) I have delved into some of his other works and have been remarkably unmoved and in some instances rather bored.
I never made the grade with Boulez, I'm afraid to say. My feeling is that his legacy will be primarily for his conducting skills than his compositions.
(May I join you in the bunker, ahinton!)

[ahinton]

I might posit Poulenc as a contender for that role, ahinton, but certainly my love affair with Messiaen's music in my youth has worn off latterly. Having recently acquired almost the complete Messiaen oeuvre on CD in recent weeks (I am a buyer and seller of libraries) I have delved into some of his other works and have been remarkably unmoved and in some instances rather bored.
I never made the grade with Boulez, I'm afraid to say. My feeling is that his legacy will be primarily for his conducting skills than his compositions.
(May I join you in the bunker, ahinton!)

Indeed you may! Welcome thereto!

Too much of Poulenc is for me overly facile - something of which one could never accuse Dutilleux. Yes, there are some fine songs and other works from him but I've never really thought of him as one of France's leading composers.

You "never made the grade" with Boulez? That sounds rather like some kind of self-accusation! Appreciation or otherwise of Boulez's output is not a test of the listeners' worth, you know!

[peterthekeys]

I'm loving the Dutilleux week. His music has fascinated me for years, and his harmonic language is one of the most magical which I have ever come across (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 found it mesmerising when I first heard it (a bit like the effect of the end of Havergal Brian's 10th.))

In a way, I see him as a parallel to John McCabe (one of my other all-time favourite composers) - they both seem to me to be fully "modernist" in the sense of exploring new developments and directions, but with one foot firmly planted in the past.

Very interesting to hear about his relationship with Boulez, and his comment towards the end of his life that he liked him a lot more now that he was full of self-doubt (Dutilleux didn't get on with people who were unequivocally certain of themselves.)

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm loving the Dutilleux week. His music has fascinated me for years, and his harmonic language is one of the most magical which I have ever come across (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 found it mesmerising when I first heard it (a bit like the effect of the end of Havergal Brian's 10th.))

In a way, I see him as a parallel to John McCabe (one of my other all-time favourite composers) - they both seem to me to be fully "modernist" in the sense of exploring new developments and directions, but with one foot firmly planted in the past.

A very perceptive observation, and one which hadn't occurred to me, but of course you are right. Both great colourists, both sharing a touch of Bartok influence if I'm not mistaken, though this has not so far been mentioned in the programmes.

Very interesting to hear about his relationship with Boulez, and his comment towards the end of his life that he liked him a lot more now that he was full of self-doubt (Dutilleux didn't get on with people who were unequivocally certain of themselves.)

[Serial_Apologist]

(Incidentally - has anyone else ever felt the connection between Symphony No.1's passacaille (1951), and the one which starts the finale of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra (1954)? The atmosphere is quite close initially, those wind solos, the sudden brass outbursts.... Luto's sounds almost as an hommage, until it takes off on its own sensational (& more superficial ) journey....

WHAT was the point of playing JUST THE FIRST TWO MOVEMENTS of Symphony No.1? Or just ONE movement from No.2? I haven't heard the programmes & hope they are wellpresented...)[/I]

This was typical of this programme, and I am with you (and ahinton).

On the Lutoslawski connection, I was strongly struck by connections between one of the livelier passages in "Le Loup" and Luto's Concerto for Orchestra, but both would have been composed around the same time, so similarities would I think be more down to common roots - the Ravel/Prokofiev/Bartok (rather than Stravinsky) influences.

[ahinton]

This was typical of this programme, and I am with you (and ahinton).

On the Lutoslawski connection, I was strongly struck by connections between one of the livelier passages in "Le Loup" and Luto's Concerto for Orchestra, but both would have been composed around the same time, so similarities would I think be more down to common roots - the Ravel/Prokofiev/Bartok (rather than Stravinsky) influences.

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