Theodore Dubois

The wonderful French pianist Cédric Tiberghien has made several admired recital and chamber recordings. Now he joins the impressive roster of pianists who have contributed to Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series with Volume 60: Théodore Dubois. Three works by this French composer are included here, and they present a captivating panorama of the evolution of Dubois’ style over some forty years: the Concerto-capriccioso of 1876 seems like a preliminary study in the style of such composers as Weber and Mendelssohn, whereas the highly Romantic Concerto in F minor (1897) is reminiscent of Saint-Saëns. The completely unknown Suite for piano and strings (1917), for its part, resembles a neoclassical pastiche.

In this recital, Véronique Gens and Hervé Niquet bring back to life a neglected aspect of France’s Romantic heritage: songs with orchestral accompaniment. Aside from a few pieces by Debussy and Duparc, and Berlioz’s famous Nuits d’été, orchestral mélodies form a virtually forgotten continent. In collaboration with the specialists of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, Alpha Classics now revisits these musical landscapes, taking us from Brittany (Hahn) to Persia, whose beauties Fauré and Saint-Saëns exalt in very different ways. Mélodies by Chausson, Gounod and Dubois and rarely heard instrumental pieces by Massenet, Fauré and Fernand de La Tombelle round out the journey with their musical reveries.

In this recital, Véronique Gens and Hervé Niquet bring back to life a neglected aspect of France’s Romantic heritage: songs with orchestral accompaniment. Aside from a few pieces by Debussy and Duparc, and Berlioz’s famous Nuits d’été, orchestral mélodies form a virtually forgotten continent. In collaboration with the specialists of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, Alpha Classics now revisits these musical landscapes, taking us from Brittany (Hahn) to Persia, whose beauties Fauré and Saint-Saëns exalt in very different ways. Mélodies by Chausson, Gounod and Dubois and rarely heard instrumental pieces by Massenet, Fauré and Fernand de La Tombelle round out the journey with their musical reveries.

Théodore Dubois was a prominent French composer, organist, theorist, and teacher in the mid- to late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but he is perhaps better remembered for a monumental deficit in judgment than for his music itself. He was a staunch conservative, and as director of the Paris Conservatoire, he refused to award the Prix to Rome to Maurice Ravel in 1905; the outpouring of consternation among the public and among musicians led him to resign his position.

Théodore Dubois was a prominent French composer, organist, theorist, and teacher in the mid- to late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but he is perhaps better remembered for a monumental deficit in judgment than for his music itself. He was a staunch conservative, and as director of the Paris Conservatoire, he refused to award the Prix to Rome to Maurice Ravel in 1905.

Soprano Sandrine Piau has been known mostly as a Baroque specialist, but she has recorded several albums of 19th century French mélodies with spectacular results. Si j'ai aimé (the title comes from one of three songs by the little-known Théodore Dubois) will be very hard for her to outdo. The list of attractions is very long and begins with the repertory. There are some familiar pieces here, such as the opening pair of songs by Saint-Saëns, but many of the composers – Dubois, Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant – are rarely performed, at least outside France, and all the songs here are top-notch.

1814 hatte Heinrich Stölzel ein erstes Mal dem preußischen König seine Erfindung der Ventile für das Horn vorgestellt, die diesem sämtliche Töne seines Umfangs in gleicher Reinheit, Schönheit und Stärke zur Verfügung stellen sollte. Die Zeiten des mangelhaften Waldhorns mit der Ungleichheit seiner Töne seien damit beendet, und er versprach, "durch diese Instrumente eine Musik herzustellen, worüber die Welt erstaunen soll".

The music of Théodore Dubois (1837–1924) has rather been overshadowed by that of other French composers of the same period, not least Fauré and Saint-Saëns. But Dubois does not deserve his relative neglect: not only was he a superlative craftsman, but he could also unfold a fetching melody and had a strong sense of musical narrative. This recital of chamber works for oboe and strings is noteworthy for a further quality, one often underestimated: much of the music is, quite simply, charming.

The Polyphonia Ensemble Berlin, which was founded by musicians from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, presents French chamber music from around 1900 on this recording. The featured composers - Théodore Dubois, Vincent d'Indy and André Caplet - may have been overshadowed by their better-known contemporaries, but they nevertheless played major and original roles in the development of music in France, bequeathing us an appreciable quantity of remarkable works. At the same time, they represent three generations in the development of music at the dawn of the 20th century.

Born in the Champagne countryside in 1837, Théodore Dubois developed his talents at the Reims Cathedral, which explains why the Catholic sacred sphere influenced him throughout his life. Even today he continues to be known in France above all as a composing organist and a composer of sacred music for liturgical use who compiled a massive oeuvre. He also continues to be much discussed in educational circles as the author of the standard manuals in music theory of a strictly conservative nature. We are now releasing three of his violin compositions, which, by contrast, have been neglected and wrongly forgotten by posterity. His Violin Concerto was dedicated to none other than the violin legend Eugène Ysaÿe.