Arthur Honegger: Jeanne d'Arc au būcher

Arthur Honegger (Composer), Seiji Ozawa (Conductor), Orchestre National de France (Orchestra), John Aler (Performer), Francoise Pollet (Performer), Georges Wilson (Performer), Marthe Keller (Performer), Michele Command (Performer), Nathalie Stutzmann (Performer), Paola Lanzi (Performer), Pierre-Marie Escourrou (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: John Aler, Francoise Pollet, Georges Wilson, Marthe Keller, Michele Command, et al.
• Orchestra: Orchestre National de France
• Conductor: Seiji Ozawa
• Composer: Arthur Honegger
• Audio CD (September 13, 2005)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• ASIN: B000026C4J
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #127,774 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can this once-famous spectacle be revived?, June 25, 2006

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Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arthur Honegger: Jeanne d'Arc au būcher (Audio CD)

Honegger wrote his 'Joan of Arc at the Stake' as a mixed-media event in 1935, combining poetry, dramatic narration, the musical forces of a huge oratorio, and many quirky popular styles, including jazz and cabaret. The orchestra contains saxophones instead of French horns, and to add to the horror-movie tone Honegger wanted at times, there's a spooky ondes martinots whose shrieks can pierce through lead walls. Joan's accusers at her trial are depicted as animals backed up by animal noises from the orchestra. In a word, the score ignores historical niceties and emerges as very odd indeed. Once famous and still performed in France, Jeanne d'Arc has been neglected on CD in recent years.

This live 1989 concert performance under Seiji Ozawa, done in a cavernous but effective-sounding French cathedral, gives the work its best chance for being revitalized. Joan doesn't sing, and her fervent, anxious, tormented, ecstatic outpourings are terrifically dramatized by the actress Marthe Keller. The singing parts belong to minor characters, all done very well, and there's male narration by a sympathetic monk, Brother Dominic, telling the story in cinematic flashback.

The flashy mixture of styles can be off-putting, with Honegger juxtaposing jazz and Gregorian chant, folksongs and high religiosity--the latter searingly sincere, however. He wanted the piece to speak to the common man and woman, he said, and for seven decades it has. The story of Joan of Arc seems to be too agonizing to appeal to audiences right now, but there's hair-riasing intensiyt here, and even if Honegger's musical materials aren't inspired, they are forceful. I wonder if listeners will discover this highly theatrical work anew?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great neglected work, February 7, 2009

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J. McCarthy "mccarthyos" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arthur Honegger: Jeanne d'Arc au būcher (Audio CD)

This is a marvelous work. A part opera, part oratorio using Joan of Arc as the subject. It is full of life and energy with some wonderful effects. There are speaking and singing parts and it is all done in that wonderfully extravagant French declamatory style. A heady and compelling experience. The performance is top rate as well.Arthur Honegger: Jeanne d'Arc au būcher

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joan of Arc Must Be Heard, February 20, 2011

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Stephen Adams "Viola d'Amore" (London, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Arthur Honegger: Jeanne d'Arc au būcher (Audio CD)

Jeanne d'Arc au būcher is one of the mighty masterpieces of the century, here available in a superlative live performance. I heard it on a classical radio station as a kid and was fascinated, despite my ignorance of French, and saw it years later in Toronto under Ozawa. The magnificent libretto of Claudel almost over the top. But the big scenes - the indelible Porcus, the Card Game, the village fest at Rheims - are incredibly dramatic, while Honegger's music -- a multi-media event ahead of its time -- ranges from choral complexities, from rabble to evocative liturgical bits to rowdy folksong, plus jazz, plus children - and the final scene, the declamatory voice of La Vierge ringing above the choruses. Such layerings! Or am I sucker for melodrama? The ultimate masterpiece of Les Six is Poulenc's much better known Carmelites, no doubt, but Jeanne d'Arc runs a close second.