Dutilleux

Dutilleux’s first major orchestral work, Symphony No.1, did not appear until 1950, by which time the composer was already in his mid-thirties. This work shows for the first time some of Dutilleux’s characteristic techniques - a joy of sound itself, a love of a certain type of sonority, rich brass chords and lush (not to say very demanding) string writing (ask any double bass players that have had to find their way around the multiple divided harmonics in The Shadows of Time). Dutilleux often presents the orchestral families in blocks of sound: Symphony No2 Le Double (1959) takes the process even further by having a group of twelve players separated from the main orchestra - the influences of plainchant and big-band jazz (one of Dutilleux’s great loves) become more apparent. -David Wordsworth

Long admired for her powerful playing and respected as a champion of new music, Anne-Sophie Mutter is the recipient of numerous pieces composed especially for her by the leading contemporary masters. Henri Dutilleux wrote his nocturne for violin and orchestra, Sur le même accord, for Mutter, and this live, world-premiere recording of the debut performance demonstrates why composers trust her with their music.

This album features cello concertos by Witold LutosIawski and Henri Dutilleux performed by the multiple prize-winning German-Canadian cellist Johannes Moser and the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, conducted by Thomas Sondergard. These works, premiered in 1970, are two of the biggest gems of the twentieth century, the golden age of the cello. While equally virtuosic and engaging, both pieces showcase different aspects of the musical landscape of the late twentieth century.

Henri Dutilleux's latest orchestral work, ''The Shadows of Time,'' has much to recommend it on its own terms, but when Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony gave the work its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening, the piece also carried a provocative question for the start of a new concert season. It challenged listeners to remember the last time they had left a concert by a major American orchestra convinced that a freshly minted work was the highlight of the program, and to wonder why the experience was so rare. …

~ALLAN KOZINN (The New York Times)

This Debut CD confirms the impression I’d formed from broadcasts of a highly talented, exceptionally well-integrated ensemble. Their excellent balance is highlighted by crystal-clear recording. The opening of the Debussy, brisk and forceful yet with plenty of variety and meticulous in observing the composer’s directions, immediately inspires confidence. After a while, though, I started to wonder whether the playing was a bit too careful and controlled; the Vertavo Quartet, not quite as slick and with more soft-edged recorded sound, give a much more spontaneous effect, with delightful and very idiomatic touches of rubato. Similarly in the Ravel, the Belcea performance brings out all the subtleties of texture and timbre, the fascinating cross-rhythms, the sweetly nostalgic emotional tone.

Not many versions of the Symphonie fantastique rival Myung-Whun Chung’s in conveying the nervously impulsive inspiration of a young composer, the hints of hysteria, the overtones of nightmare in Berlioz’s programme. He makes one register it afresh as genuinely fantastic. Some may well prefer the more direct, more solid qualities that you find in the new Mehta version, also well played, and recorded with satisfying weight, but the volatile element in this perennially modern piece is something which Chung brings out to a degree I have rarely known before, and that establishes his as a very individual, sharply characterized version with unusually strong claims.

If this premiere recording of Stephen Hough’s String Quartet No 1 may be regarded as definitive—the work is dedicated to the Takács Quartet—those of the quartets by Ravel and Dutilleux are no less distinguished.