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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
transcendent musical beauty,
By
This review is from: Dutilleux: Complete Orchestral Works (Audio CD)
There is an unfinished quality to much contemporary classical music. For some composers, their pieces are studies for larger works ( ever in progress ), others revel in a fragmented brilliance, an apparently purposeful lack of purpose. Amidst these ( variously valuable ) diversions, there exist creators working in what I term the "authentic" classical tradition, striving for artistic achievement that lasts beyond the confines of the zeitgeist. These individualists operate in an aesthetic mode set apart from both the hidebound rules of nostalgic conservatism and the perpetual fragmentation of avant-garde radicalism. Henri Dutilleux ( born 1916 ) certainly is an individualistic composer.Given the sensual, quasi-exotic beauty of his music, is it natural to link Dutilleux with the great French "impressionists". Music critics have for years mentioned a connection with Ravel but aside from perfection of craftsmanship, a much more convincing link can be made to the mysterious metamorphosis exemplified in the sound world of Claude Debussy. And, however strong his ties to an essentially Gallic refinement, Dutilleux has also quite clearly profited from familiarity with Bartok, Stravinsky, and Webern. Henri Dutilleux reached musical maturity during the heyday of serialism, a style which the composer admits was an influence but which also had negative attributes ( "cultural terrorism" is how he characterized the fanatical side of the movement ). His own music defies easy categorization; it is unquestionably "modern" yet noticeably part of the European classical tradition. No matter how complex the harmony or orchestration, a sense of forward momentum and classically influenced "inevitability" is felt throughout his pieces. A seamless blend of the traditional and innovative caused an admiring contemporary ( Messiaen, another influence on Dutilleux ) to remark that the younger composer was in some ways more, in other ways less "advanced" than himself. His 1st Symphony ( 1951 ) is a work of great skill but doesn't prefigure his mature work as much as his 2nd Symphony of 1959, which is full of Dutilleux "trademarks": plaintive, upward-spiraling figures on woodwinds and the use of "reverse variation" ( whereby the theme is revealed only at the end of the piece ). His composition from 1965, "Metaboles", a set of five interconnected orchestral episodes, prefigures his work in the more ambitious Cello Concerto of 1970 ( subtitled "Tout un Monde Lontain..." ). Similarly, "Timbres, Espace, Mouvement" (1978) has a strong influence on the orchestral textures of the Violin Concerto of 1985 ( "L'Arbre des Songes" ) . As far as this 3 CD set is concerned, potential purchasers can be confident that the performances and engineering are excellent. However, I strongly recommend that interested listeners seek out the recordings of the cello and violin concertos featuring the dedicatees. Rostropovich's version is coupled with the Lutoslawski Concerto and Isaac Stern's recording is coupled with the Violin Concerto of Peter Maxwell-Davies.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Music for a Starry Night,
By
This review is from: Dutilleux: Complete Orchestral Works (Audio CD)
The reason to buy this boxed set is not to acquire new, definitive interpretations of much represented music; it is to become acquainted with a composer who has had no prior integral recording. That is justification enough. The music of Henri Dutilleux (born 1916) manages to be unmistakably "modern" without being the slightest bit doctrinaire or off-putting: Dutilleux's roots go down deeply into the impressionist soil of Claude Debussy, although unlike Debussy, Dutilleux shows an interest in polyphonic complexity rather than in chord-based harmonic color as such. In addition, Dutilleux's structures usually correspond to what one can call "the symphonic" in a way that Debussy rarely essayed: and indeed his first two orchestral scores were symphonies (1951 and 1959). Like many composers in the aftermath of World War Two who refused to embrace the procedures of the "Second Viennese School," Dutilleux found himself somewhat marginalized. While Dutilleux received performances and commissions and was recorded over the years, he never enjoyed the cachet of, say, Pierre Boulez. In an essay on "The Symphony in France," published in "Paths to Modern Music" (1971), the astute Laurence Davies had to plead for Dutilleux, "a much underestimated composer outside his own country" whose "brilliantly clear textures" make his Second Symphony (subtitled "The Double") "an astounding achievement." On record, Rostropovich played the Cello Concerto and Stern his Violin Concerto; other works have been recorded here and there. The neglect is largely made up for in Yan Pascal Tortelier's comprehensive four-disc survey for Chandos, illustrated appropriately on the jewel-box and on the pamphlet by van Gogh's "Starry Night." On CD 1, Tortelier pairs the two symphonies. Davies valued the Second over the First Symphony, although he admitted the virtues of the latter, particularly its opening Passacaglia. The musical language of the First Symphony is close (by way of a known reference) to Frank Martin's: intensely chromatic without abandoning tonality. (Dutilleux's Passacaglia resembles Martin's free-standing endeavor of the same name in its full-orchestra version, available on a Chandos CD under Matthias Bamert). The two inner movements are a colorful Scherzo and a darkly colored slow movement. The Finale, like the First Movement, is a theme with variations - virtually a second passacaglia, but wider ranging in its moods than the First Movement. The Second Symphony pits a small orchestra of about ten instruments, including harpsichord and celesta, against the full orchestra, hence the appellation of "The Double." I imagine that this is a difficult score to record, as the spatial element resists transcribed representation. That said, this three-movement work is quite as fascinating and beautiful as its precursor. On CD 2, Tortelier gives us Dutilleux's Violin Concerto, "L'arbre des songes" ("The Tree of Dreams" [1985]), in a sequence of uninterrupted movements proper and interludes. This is Dutilleux the mystic, sharing certain penchants with Olivier Messiaen, although never sounding brash or vulgar, as Messiaen sometimes does. "The Tree of Dreams" is music for late-night listening. The "Two Sonnets by Jean Cassou" for baritone and orchestra, dating from the 1940s, show the composer working in a tradition of French orchestral song going back to Hector Berlioz and his "Nuits d'été." The score called "Timbres, espace, et mouvement avec interlude" (1978) takes its inspiration from van Gogh's "Starry Night." It depicts the awe of stellar delirium effectively - less wildly than Messiaen, be it said - yet with some strange and novel sounds. "Métaboles" (1964), on CD 3, again shows some kinship with Martin (think of "The Four Elements") and gives the impression of a symphony by another name. The Cello Concerto, entitled "Tout un monde lointain" (difficult convincingly to translate into English: "A Whole World Far Away"), is another essay in religious yearning and phantasmagoria. Like Berlioz, Dutilleux has a gift for melody: the concerto-format lets him exploit his talent, allotting the "singing role" to the solo instrument and supporting the solo line in a delicate web of hallucinatory accompaniment. The descriptive title comes from one of the Baudelaire poems that the concerto purports to "interpret." This is another link to Berlioz, who made one of the earliest settings of Baudelaire. "Delicacy" and "exquisiteness" are adjective that come to mind insistently as one listens to Dutilleux's music. One thinks of them as French traits par excellence. They appear again in "Mystère de l'instant," a quasi-concerto for cimbalom and strings - by no means so odd as it might seem. On CD 4, Tortelier gives us "The Shadows of Time" (1995), for voice and orchestra, which shows Dutilleux refining his mode of expression even further toward the seamless and translucent. With one minor quibble, I recommend this boxed set. The quibble is the shortness of the fourth disc. Chandos could easily have added a performance of Dutilleux's string quartet, "Ainsi la nuit," which would have turned a stinting measure into a fair one. Discs 1 - 3 are well filled.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
France's Eminence gris,
By
This review is from: Dutilleux: Complete Orchestral Works (Audio CD)
With the death of Messiaen a few years ago, France has only Dutilleux and Boulez as it's remaining grey eminences musically. Of the two, Dutilleaux is the less well known, partly because he has been hardly prolific (he is a merciless critic of his own work) and because Boulez has a greater genius for self-promotion.This complete collection should go a long way to securing Dutilleux's reputation as one of the finest French composers of the last half of the 20th century. This CD is a collectin of all of the orchestral works by Dutilleux. they span his entire career, from the 1st symphony of 1951 to The Shadows of Time, from 1997. Not all of the works on the disc are masterpieces, but many are, including the marvelous Cello concerto from 1970, Tout un monde lontain, the Violin concerto and the Shadows of Time. Dutilleux's world is a mix of shadow and light, neither atonal nor tonal. He has the same interest in sonority as Messiaen, but is more traditional and craftsmanlike. The music is clearly in the French Impressionist tradition, yet it is allusive and fleeting. almost haunting really. Performances here are expert. Tortelier conducts marvelously and the soloists are all expert. This is an essential disc for fans of modern French music.
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