Pascal Gallet

The second half of the 19th century was an erawhen musicians valued the evocation of the fantastic and the expression of passion above all else. They did not hesitate to manipulate and reshape musical frameworks through a wide variety of expressive techniques such as rubato (modifying rhythms and varying pulsation), portamento (expressively sliding between notes), arpeggiation, adding appoggiaturas and trills, and improvising musical transitions. For the recording of Vienna 1840, Pascal Valois set out to rediscover these manners of expression as they existed in the Germanic Romantic period. For this same reason, he used a replica of an 1830 Viennese guitar by luthier Johann Georg Stauffer (1778–1853).

For listeners who prefer their Ravel lushly textured, luminously colored, and luxuriantly impressionistic, this four-disc set of his orchestral music performed by Charles Dutoit and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal will be just the thing. Recorded between 1981 and 1995 in warmly opulent Decca sound and including all the canonical works plus the two piano concerts and the opera L'Enfant et les sortiléges, Dutoit's approach to Ravel is decidedly sensual, even tactile. One can feel the excitement in the closing "Dance générale" of Daphnis et Chloé, sense the energy in La Valse, smell the sea in Une barque sur l'océan, and touch the dancer's flushed skin in Boléro. This is not to say that details are lost in Dutoit's performances – with the superlative playing of the Montreal orchestra, one can assuredly hear everything in the scores. Nor is this to say that Dutoit neglects the music's clear shapes and lucid forms – with a decisive beat and a clean technique, Dutoit's interpretations are models of clarity. But it is assuredly to assert that, for sheer aural beauty, these recordings cannot be beat. With the very virtuosic and very French playing of Pascal Rogé in the two piano concertos plus very characterful singing in L'Enfant, this set will be mandatory listening for all those who love Ravel.

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This disc makes for a satisfying programme. I agree with its title, too, for although reference books often call Honegger Swiss he was born in Le Havre, became a pupil of d'Indy in Paris, was one of Les Six and died in the French capital. His Cello Concerto is a small work both in style and content, pastorally Gallic in feeling and with a bouncy second section and finale to its single-movement form. This is unfamiliar repertory, well written for the cello, that earns its place in the catalogue.

Constellations, the 5th opus in the Solo series of the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, invites you to discover the viola repertoire from the 19th century to the present day. Conveyed with sensitivity and panache by violist Guillaume Leroy, joined by Victor Metral and Aurélien Pascal, this album brings together six previously unreleased works by some of today’s leading composers, set against pieces from the Romantic and modern repertoire. From Schumann to Connesson, not forgetting Lutoslawski, Pépin, Vieuxtemps and Tanguy, let yourself be guided through this galaxy of poetic and powerful works.

Between 1803 and 1968, the Grand Prix de Rome marked the zenith of composition studies at the Paris Conservatoire. In Maurice Ravels time the competition included an elimination round (a fugue and a choral piece) followed by a cantata in the form of an operatic scena. The entries were judged by a jury which generally favoured expertise and conformity more than originality and Ravels growing reputation as a member of the avant-garde was therefore hardly to his advantage, and may explain why he never won the coveted Premier Grand Prix, and the three-year stay at Romes Villa Medici that went with it.

Pascal Comelade was born in Montpellier, France. After living in Barcelona for several years, he made his first album, under the name of Fluence, influenced by electronic music and by the group Heldon. Since 1980 Comelade releases music under his own name. Ever since, his music has become more acoustic and is often characterised by the sounds of toy instruments, used as solo-instruments or as an integral part of the sound of his group, the Bel Canto Orchestra. Marc Hurtado is one half of the experimental French duo Étant Donnés. Active since the end of the 1970s, the group has released several albums, also collaborating with people like Alan Vega, Lydia Lunch, Michael Gira or Genesis P-Orridge.

It is easy to understand why Chausson’s Concert is not as regular a feature of concert programmes as, say, Franck’s Violin Sonata. After all, a work for piano, violin and string quartet must surely have an instrumental imbalance. How can Chausson occupy all three violin parts for nearly forty minutes? In short, he does not. Nor does he try. Much of the Concert is essentially a sonata for violin and piano with an accompanying, though essential, string quartet. Chausson’s refusal to involve the quartet at every juncture merely to justify the players’ fees results in a signally well-balanced late Romantic work. When the quartet does feature on an equal footing, the effect is all the more telling. The fingerprints of Franck can be detected readily throughout the Concert, but in this and the Piano Quartet, Chausson’s individuality overcomes his teacher’s influence. Indeed, there are premonitions of Debussy, Ravel and even Shostakovich. Tangibly the product of live performances, these accounts traverse the gamut of emotions, bristling with energy, lyricism and conviction, and ensuring that this disc will never gather much dust.

That Baïlèro, a shepherd’s song from the highlands of Auvergne sung in the Occitan dialect of the area, should become a favorite with singers ranging from Victoria de los Angeles to Sarah Brightman by way of Renée Fleming and Karita Mattila, is all because of Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret. As a budding composer in Paris in the 1900s, Canteloube was unable to interest himself in the various musical cliques and currents. Instead he looked for inspiration in Auvergne in central France where he was born, starting to collect the songs of the farmers and shepherds that lived in the mountainous region. But he did so as a composer rather than a musicologist, and between 1923 and 1954 he published a total of thirty Chants d’Auvergne, arranged, harmonized and sumptuously orchestrated.