Roussel Sinfonietta for Strings, Op. 52

Sinfonietta for Strings, Op. 52

Albert Roussel (1869-1937)

Albert Roussel is a unique figure among 20^th century French composers. Born into a wealthy family, and despite showing early musical promise, Roussel decided upon a naval career, and spent five years as a commissioned officer in the French navy. However his musical interests asserted themselves, and at the age of 25 Roussel resigned his commission to devote himself to concentrated study. Settling in Paris, he came under the influence of the formidable Vincent D’Indy, under whom he studied at the Schola Cantorum---a course of study lasting a decade! He went on to become a professor at the Schola (where he numbered among his pupils Erik Satie, as well as a composer who later would become a powerful force in advanced 20^th century contemporary music, Edgard Varese.) His career as a composer grew steadily, moving from a early “impressionist” phase to a mature style of great individuality. A lone individual among his generation, he initially drew inspiration from the late 19^th century French tradition, the work of Debussy, and even from the romantic Russian masters. But it would be the work of Stravinsky and Prokofiev (who made their home in Paris after the First World War) which would have a lasting influence upon Roussel, resulting in music of an interesting toughness, sinewy texture, rhythmic bouyancy and bright primary colours.

The Sinfonietta for Strings, composed in 1934, is a splendid example of Roussel’s later style.

The work opens with a crisp, sharply articulated melody heard against a tramping rhythmic background, soon fading down to a more lyrical contrasting theme. The primary theme returns to round out the movement. The music is tonal, shot through with glints of dissonant harmonies, and generally preserving a resolute, unsentimental character.

The slow central movement opens with massive, sweeping chords, creating an atmosphere of grave intensity. The music seems to suggest a tapestry of string sonority, rich and introspective. Quite unexpectedly the third movement swings into action, for the first time laid out in a major tonality (D Major). The musical texture remains dense, lively, if a trifle muscular, springing forward and maintaining a restless momentum, coming to a blunt conclusion.

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Faure Nocturne from Shylock

Nocturne from Shylock

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924)

Although he would eventually create a true operatic landmark in his Penelope (1913), for many years Gabriel Faure never went beyond composing occasional sets of incidental pieces for theatrical productions, one of which would become his best-known orchestral composition, the Suite from Pelleas Et Melisande--- the very play which would be the basis for Debussy’s landmark opera of 1902, as well as orchestral works by Schoenberg and Sibelius.

An example of Faure’s incidental music is the set of pieces composed for an 1889 production of a play loosely based on Shakespeare’s Merchant Of Venice, Shylock.. One tiny movement, the jewel-like Nocturne is the best known of these pieces. Here, in a work for string orchestra, we hear Faure, the great melodist and composer of haunting songs (the glory of the French tradition of “melodies”), the violins soaring over a sustained, subtly-shifting harmonic background. This is indeed a genuine “song without words.”

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Massenet Meditation from Thais

Meditation from Thais

Jules Massenet (1842-1912)

In his day Jules Massenet was the Andrew Lloyd-Webber of his day: an enormously prolific, popular, commercially canny purveyor of operatic sweet-meats gobbled up by an adoring public all over the world. Never before or since had French opera achieved such an international following. Most of his operas (rather like those of his contemporaries Puccini and Richard Strauss) focused upon fascinating female protagonists, with more than a hint of a deliciously alluring erotic element designed to titillate and fascinate audiences.

Among the more “scandalous” Massent confections was Thais, first performed in 1894. This tale of a “courtesan, ” whose life becomes entangled with that of an austere “holy man, ” who progressively yields to her attractions---while at the same time SHE becomes drawn to his spiritual purity, stirred up a storm of comment, protest and sheer fascination on the part of the public and critics of the time. The title role was designed for a young Californian soprano, Sibyl Sanderson, who had a lovely voice, was quite beautiful, and known to be one of a long chain of Massenet mistresses. On the opera’s opening night Ms. Sanderson’s costume accidentally (?) came undone, revealing a fetching bosom, which more than stole the show, and added all the more to the uproar. To this day Thais has never quite lived down its torrid reputation.

All that stands in stark contrast (musically speaking) with the famous “Meditation, ” which forms an entr’acte at the opera’s midpoint. Justly famed as a work of intense emotion of a strangely ambiguous spiritual character---it is as often played at funerals as at weddings----the Meditation is heard as an extended violin melody hovering above a hushed string orchestra background. Vintage Massenet, the textures are lush, the melodic element smooth and creamy, and (mirroring the opera’s plot) nicely balanced between the sensual and the spiritual.

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Saint-Saens “The Elephant, ” from Carnival Of The Animals

“The Elephant, ” from Carnival Of The Animals

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

The “Carnival of the Animals” was composed by Camille Saint-Saens as a private joke, quickly written in 1886, and never published in his lifetime. Ironically it would become the composer’s most-popular work, even outstripping the concertos and symphonies in the affections of the musical public.

Apart from the obvious pleasure of hearing musical portraits of the animal kingdom, a great deal of the fun of the “Carnival” lies in some of the in-jokes and sly musical subtleties which are woven throughout the work. A particularly droll example can be heard in the musical portrait of the Elephant. In the lumbering slow-waltz of the opening tune we can, of course, envision the bulk and gait of this huge beast. But then, to impart an unexpected touch of elegance (even to a pachyderm!) Saint-Saens slips in an extended quotation from Berlioz’ “Dance of the Sylphs” from the Damnation Of Faust. What makes this especially funny is remembering that a.) the Berlioz original rolls along at a quick tempo; b.) far from being heard in the low register of the orchestra, The Berlioz melody is heard in high, ethereal violins. But even if the listener has no inkling of the musical quotation, the likeness the animal being portrayed is faithful, affectionate, and amusing.

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Ravel Pavane pour une Infante defúnte

Pavane pour une Infante defúnte

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Some composers begin their careers with a Great Popular Success – usually a rather modest composition which becomes so-well loved (and overplayed) that their creators rue the day that they ever composed these pieces, despite the always-welcome royalties! Among a number of notorious examples would certainly be Rachmaninov’s “Prelude in C-sharp Minor, Liszt’s Liebestraum, and Chopin’s “Minute Waltz.” Such is the case with Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane for a Dead Princess” (often mis-translated as “infant, ” “Infante” actually refers to an “Infanta, ” the Spanish title for a royal princess.) Such a title is characteristic of the young composer’s romantic imagination in creating this exquisite musical miniature, which, however often it is picked out by “pretty young things with spidery fingers, ” never loses its appeal. The Pavane was one of the earliest of Ravel’s works to come to public notice, written in 1899 for solo piano and dedicated to the Princess Edmond de Polignac---an American woman (heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune) who became a central figure in early 20^th century Parisian musical life. (In 1910 Ravel prepared an orchestral setting of the work.) With its eerie calm and nostalgic, somewhat “archaic” tone, the Pavane represents a turning away from the gauzy shimmer of late-19^th century “impressionism, ” and even in this early work seems to look ahead to the neo-classic trend which music would follow by the 1920s.

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Satie March, “Le Piccadilly”

March, “Le Piccadilly”

Erik Satie (1866-1925)

Erik Satie is often thought of as one of the great eccentric figures in French music, known for miniature compositions with titles such as “Things seen from left to right (without glasses), ” “The Dreamy Fish, ” “Flaccid Preludes, ” and an especially evocative work for piano in Four movements, “Three Pieces in the shape of a Pear.” Satie, who had stumbled through his teens with fitful attempts at gaining a conventional musical education, would go on to become compose of note (and notoriety), a close friend of Debussy, who in his later years numbered among his friends Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. He would have a deep influence upon younger composers such as Ravel, Poulenc, and such Americans as Virgil Thomson and John Cage. For many years he lived an impoverished life in the Bohemian world of Montmarte, although at one point he inherited a legacy from his family with which he purchased a set of 12 identical grey velvet suits. His musical personality ranged from a Christian mysticism which was expressed in his “Mass for the Poor, ” to “Socrate, ” an austere and poignant setting of the account of the death of the Greek philosopher. There was also an uproarious sense of humour and somewhat surrealistic sensibility, as can be heard in his ballet, “Parade” (performed in 1917 with designs by Picasso), in which a typewriter makes an appearance as an orchestral instrument.

His jaunty musical spirit is nicely expressed in the tiny “Piccadilly” March composed in 1903. The title reflects Satie’s characteristic delight in things English---an eccentric artist perhaps inspired by a notion of the British as a nation of eccentrics. However, the music itself is actually an echo of American Ragtime, which became the rage in Europe early in the 20^th century. Indeed, the March actually began life as a song, “La Transatlantique” (“The Transatlantic Girl”), with a text by Satie himself, in a hilarious scramble of French and English, full of references to Baltimore, Chicago, Mississippi, Ohio – and dollars! That version was abandoned, and the march first appeared as a piano piece (later orchestrated), which follows the traditional march and trio pattern, full of the typical prancing rhythms and syncopation of Ragtime. Scott Joplin would have loved it.

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