Radio-Symphony Orchestra Vienna
Bertrand de Billy conductor
Bizet: Carmen Suite ·
Debussy · Prélude à L´après-midi d´un faune
Ravel: Pavane pour une Infante défunte ·
Roussel · Le Festin de
l´Araignée ·
Fauré: Suite „Masques et bergamasques”
Bertrand de Billy, chief conductor of the the Radio-
Symphony Orchestra Vienna and of the Gran Teatro del
Liceu in Barcelona, was most recently praised by both
critics and audiences for his remarkable recording of
Eugen d´Albert´s Tiefland.
About the Works
This present first selection of French orchestral
music includes essentially the classics of the
repertoire. The oldest – Georges Bizet – was
born in 1838, and the youngest – Maurice Ravel – in
1875. These pieces have in common that they are all
connected with dance, whether they are suites from
large ballets, such as the works from Roussel and
Fauré, or whether the various dance forms provided
the patterns for the compositions or are quoted, as
with Bizet, Debussy and Ravel. This programme
gives a very fine impression of the development of
Impressionism in French music, as well as of the
specific use of solo instruments. In the present
recording, these are principally the violin, the flute
and the horn.
The version of Georges Bizet´s
Carmen Suite
presented contains a combination from the two wellknown
suites. As well as the four introductions to the
separate acts of the opera, the Nocturne represents
a version of Micaela’s aria for solo violin, and the
Danse Bohème is a version of the trio of Carmen,
Mercedes und Frasquita in the third act.
Claude Debussy´s
Prélude à L`après-midi d´un
faune can safely be described as one of the bestknown
works of French orchestral literature. It is
generally considered to be one of the first adequate
musical responses to the new impressionist lyricism
in France.
First performed in 1894, the music draws the
listener into a remarkable, profound world of colours
and mood such as probably had scarcely been heard
before in this form. Inspired by a poem of Mallarmé,
Debussy illustrates his associations, as if broken up
by a prism.
“It is no song of mourning for a dead child, but
rather the idea of a Pavane as it could have been
danced by such a young princess, as Velázquez
would have painted her at the Spanish court.” Thus
the composer himself described his orchestral piece,
Pavane pour une Infante défunte, first performed in
Paris in 1911, which, like many of his other compositions,
was actually based on a piano composition.
The Pavane, a slow court dance with a processional
character, originally stemming from Padua, is first
intoned by Maurice Ravel with a solo horn, and then
taken up gradually by strings and woodwind.
If Bizet, Debussy and Ravel are permanent
guests on all opera and concert stages, Albert Roussel,
born in 1869, is much less well-known in our latitudes.
In his home country, he is counted among the pathfinders
of modern French music. At the start of his
career, he oriented himself thoroughly to Debussy,
but soon went far beyond him both harmonically and
in the richness of his tone palette. Although his
works always maintain a certain clarity of form and
of the conduct of the voices, an often complicated
rhythmic approach and irregular bar structures point
far into the future. The ballet-pantomine
Le Festin de
l´Araignée (The Spider´s Feast) was first performed
in Paris in 1913 as Roussel’s Op. 17, with great success.
The action plays in the corner of a garden. Many
insects have been caught in a net, and are preparing
themselves for death, while the spider thinks of the
opulent feast, but does not forget that it is itself in
danger of being consumed by a praying mantis. The
ballet finally concludes with a one-day funeral celebration,
after which the peace and calm of the evening
again return to the garden.
Roussel himself produced the orchestral suite from the
ballet, which lasts barely 40 minutes, bringing together
the most important components with dramaturgic skill.
Gabriel Fauré, born in 1845, is on the one hand
somewhat less well-known than Bizet, Debussy and
Ravel, but on the other hand better known than
Albert Roussel. His
Requiem Op. 48 is often performed
here too. Less well-known is his work for the stage
Masques et bergamasques, a work commissioned
by the court of Monaco and first performed in Monte
Carlo in 1919, which attempts to couple song, ballet
and spoken dialog in the form of a “Divertissement”.
Three of the four movements (the whole Divertissement
contains 8 movements) of the present suite,
Op. 112, are based on youthful works of the composer,
with only the closing Pastorale dating from the year
1918. The text and music of the stage work on which
it is based seek to conjure up the cheerful-melancholy
rococo world of the Fêtes Galantes, a cycle of poems
by Paul Verlaine which appeared in 1869, from the
first lines of which the title is also borrowed:
“Your soul is a choice landscape in which
enchanting masques and bergamasques proceed …”
Michael Lewin
translation: ar.pege translations