A most enjoyable discovery for me on my recent French jaunt, the music of Ladmirault got several plays driving through various areas of Brittany. I bought this album out of pure curiosity some time ago
First time through, not concentrating properly, it sounded slightly bland and all-purpose but there was sufficient interest to give it another spin for some Breton atmos... and it grew on me. The Prelude to his opera Myrdhin (Merlin) is immediately attractive.
More and more the music reminded me of the rhapsodic style of Bax or Vaughan Williams - and became rather addictive, hence the multiple listens while criss-crossing Ladmirault's native lands around Nantes (Wiki biog copied below, for info).
I think the likes of EdgeleyRob and teamsaint round these parts would get a lot out if it!
A great discovery - and well played by the Orchestre de Bretagne, conducted by Stefan Sanderling, one of Kurt's sons. Nice recording too.
Paul Ladmirault (1877–1944) was a French composer whose music expressed his devotion to Brittany. Claude Debussy wrote that his work possessed a "fine dreamy musicality", commenting on its characteristically hesitant character by suggesting that it sounded as if it was "afraid of expressing itself too much". Florent Schmitt said of him: "Of all the musicians of his generation, he was perhaps the most talented, most original, but also the most modest".
Ladmirault was born in Nantes. A child prodigy, he learned piano, organ and violin from an early age. At the age of 8, he composed a sonata for violin and piano. At the age of fifteen, when still a student of the Nantes High School, he wrote a three act opera Gilles de Retz. It was first performed on 18 May 1893. He was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire to study under Gabriel Fauré, learning harmony under Antoine Taudou and counterpoint from André Gedalge. He orchestrated a few works by Fauré. Like his fellow students - Maurice Ravel, Florent Schmitt, Louis Aubert, Jean Roger-Ducasse, Georges Enesco - he had become well known before he left the Conservatory. In 1903, he wrote a Breton Suite in three movements and the Prelude Brocéliande de matin. These two works were orchestral extracts from his second opera, Myrdhin (Merlin), an epic work which he worked on from 1902-9, and continued to revise until 1921, but which has never been performed.
He also wrote Young Cervantes for small orchestra, Valse triste and Épousailles for orchestra and piano. The ballet, La Prêtesse de Korydwenn (The Priestess of Ceridwen), was created at the Paris Opera on 17 December 1926.
In the field of religious music, he wrote a brief Mass for organ and choir, and a Tantum ergo for voice, organ and orchestra.
He also wrote articles on music in various periodicals. Appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Nantes conservatoire, Ladmirault rarely left the Nantes region, calling himself a "homebody" who disliked to travel.
First time through, not concentrating properly, it sounded slightly bland and all-purpose but there was sufficient interest to give it another spin for some Breton atmos... and it grew on me. The Prelude to his opera Myrdhin (Merlin) is immediately attractive.
More and more the music reminded me of the rhapsodic style of Bax or Vaughan Williams - and became rather addictive, hence the multiple listens while criss-crossing Ladmirault's native lands around Nantes (Wiki biog copied below, for info).
I think the likes of EdgeleyRob and teamsaint round these parts would get a lot out if it!
A great discovery - and well played by the Orchestre de Bretagne, conducted by Stefan Sanderling, one of Kurt's sons. Nice recording too.
Paul Ladmirault (1877–1944) was a French composer whose music expressed his devotion to Brittany. Claude Debussy wrote that his work possessed a "fine dreamy musicality", commenting on its characteristically hesitant character by suggesting that it sounded as if it was "afraid of expressing itself too much". Florent Schmitt said of him: "Of all the musicians of his generation, he was perhaps the most talented, most original, but also the most modest".
Ladmirault was born in Nantes. A child prodigy, he learned piano, organ and violin from an early age. At the age of 8, he composed a sonata for violin and piano. At the age of fifteen, when still a student of the Nantes High School, he wrote a three act opera Gilles de Retz. It was first performed on 18 May 1893. He was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire to study under Gabriel Fauré, learning harmony under Antoine Taudou and counterpoint from André Gedalge. He orchestrated a few works by Fauré. Like his fellow students - Maurice Ravel, Florent Schmitt, Louis Aubert, Jean Roger-Ducasse, Georges Enesco - he had become well known before he left the Conservatory. In 1903, he wrote a Breton Suite in three movements and the Prelude Brocéliande de matin. These two works were orchestral extracts from his second opera, Myrdhin (Merlin), an epic work which he worked on from 1902-9, and continued to revise until 1921, but which has never been performed.
He also wrote Young Cervantes for small orchestra, Valse triste and Épousailles for orchestra and piano. The ballet, La Prêtesse de Korydwenn (The Priestess of Ceridwen), was created at the Paris Opera on 17 December 1926.
In the field of religious music, he wrote a brief Mass for organ and choir, and a Tantum ergo for voice, organ and orchestra.
He also wrote articles on music in various periodicals. Appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Nantes conservatoire, Ladmirault rarely left the Nantes region, calling himself a "homebody" who disliked to travel.
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