Neper Constant

For the last batch of our Iannis Xenakis retrospective, we have remastered important recordings from the late 60s that had never been re-issued since their original LP version. The works here conducted by Marius Constant include the Polytope de Montréal, composed for an installation Xenakis made in the French pavilion of the 1967 World Fair, including a sensational light show. It has never been recorded otherwise! Also included are the ballet Kraanerg, number-theory-inspired Syrmos, and mythological works Medea (also an absolute premiere) and Oresteia (probably his stage masterpiece).

Honegger was an eclectic composer whose achievement is well reflected in this stimulating compilation. Dutoit’s recording of the oratorio King David is particularly compelling: on hearing it one understands why the composer frequently returned to the formula of narrator, soloists, chorus and orchestra.

The soundtrack of the 1927 film Napoléon, directed by Abel Gance, was the first film soundtrack ever composed. It was written by Arthur Honegger, a close collaborator of Abel Gance, and consists of twenty minutes of music. In the 1990s, Marius Constant composed a film score for a screening in Paris of the Kevin Brownlow cut, here performed by the composer himself conducting the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, enhanced by the original compositions by Honegger.

A fascinating selection of pieces by one of the twentieth century’s most original and perplexing figures. Constant Lambert is perhaps better known today for his strident views on his contemporaries, but was also as a composer of delightful, anarchic music, influenced particularly by Stravinsky and Ravel. A distinguished line-up of performers presents these works in the clearest light. This recording is a must for anyone interested in twentieth-century music. Many of Lambert’s other works are also available on Hyperion.

Chandos has been offering some interesting scores in the Movies series, but this differs in their having had to combine two composers on one CD since neither one scored enough films to have an album entirely to himself. Lambert and Berners were close friends, and William Walton was part of their circle as well. All three of them tried to separate their music from the strictly English style and to be more cosmopolitan. Lambert even called music of the English pastoral tradition "cow pat." The first of Lambert's scores was for a documentary about the Merchant Navy - which, being made in 1940, had a scene of a ship being torpedoed. Lambert was considered something of a Russian specialist in music and got the job for the Russian drama on Anna Karenina, released in 1948.

Constant Lambert like his colleague Peter Warlocktends to be remembered more for his personal charisma and tragically early death than for his music. Yet the twenty or so extended scores which he did compose (The Rio Grande and Summer's Last Will and Testament being perhaps the most well known) are every bit as worthy as those of his more famous contemporaries. The bulk of Lambert's output was directed at the ballet, and he was the first Englishman ever to be commissioned by Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes quite an achievement for a twenty-year-old. As a result of this, Nijinska commissioned Pomona, a ballet rich in the atmosphere of neoclassicism and the French dance music of the 1920s.