COMPOSERS: Dutilleux
LABELS: Arte Nova
ALBUM TITLE: Dutilleux
WORKS: L'arbre des songes, Mystere de L'instant, Deux sonnets de Jean Cassou, La geole
PERFORMER: Francois Le Roux, Olivier Charlier, Bordeaux Aquitaine National Orchestra, Hans Graf
CATALOGUE NO: 82876 63825 2
This rewarding coupling of Dutilleux’s
violin concerto L’arbre des songes with
Mystère de l’instant highlights many
resonances, despite their belonging
to different phases of his creativity.
That both use cimbalom is only the
most obvious, for there are numerous
moments in Mystère that feel like halfforgotten
memories of the gestures of
the concerto.
This is Olivier Charlier’s second
recording of L’arbre des songes, and has
greater urgency than his stylish but
occasionally languid performance as
part of Yan Pascal Tortelier’s Dutilleux
survey with the BBC Philharmonic
(Chandos). The Bordeaux Aquitaine
orchestra may not match the finesse
or the recorded sound of the British
ensemble, but they more than
compensate with their forthright
passion, moulded by Hans Graf to the
ebb and flow of the score’s undulating
textures. It is surprising, then, that
the climax of the crucial ‘tuning-up’
Interlude underwhelms, especially
when set alongside Renaud Capuçon’s
spine-tingling version with Myung-
Whun Chung at the helm (Virgin).
The ten orchestral snapshots that
comprise Mystère de l’instant suggest
a more fragmentary approach. In
Graf’s hands it is not so much the
surface contrasts that impress, but
the underlying unity that others
find elusive. Neal Davies gave a fine
account of the two Cassou Sonnets
for Tortelier’s set, but François Le
Roux adds an entirely new dimension,
living every word of the poems. An
equally stirring first recording of the
orchestral version of La geôle is the
icing on the cake of a most welcome
disc. Christopher Dingle