Compositrices: New Light on French Romantic Women Composers
rec. 2019-2022, Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice, Italy (piano music, songs, chamber music); 2021-2022, La Halle aux Grains, Toulouse, Auditorium de la Maison de la Radio et de la Musique, Paris, Arsenal, Metz, Théâtre Raymond Devos, Tourcoing, France (orchestral music)
No texts
Bru Zane BZ2006 [8 CD: 609]
Bru Zane is something of a haven for admirers of their book-sized discs of French operatic or comic-lighter material, but this 8-CD box set is different, offering 165 pieces of music by French Romantic women composers. In the booklet the question of ‘gender-sensitive’ programming is addressed and, cannily, Bru Zane’s Alexandre Dratwicki suggests that this ten-hour box offers artists and concert managers a cornucopia of music on which they can draw and then programme. I’m not wholly convinced that hall managers around the globe will be buying the box or that artists will do likewise – artists, after all, tend to prefer their small repertoires – but we can let that pass.
The years 1800-1920 are covered in the chronology, and the well-known and the largely unknown alike are included, as are salon pieces and sonatas, and orchestral music, as well as songs, of course. The discs are laid out to emphasise the project’s variety and this, as Dratwicki notes, thereby avoids the danger of an unpleasant listening experience. Variety is the guiding spirit. I’m going to risk a brief disc-by-disc precis to alert you both to that variety and also to the more homespun compositions here. A few key players recur throughout the box; Mel Bonis is one, and deservedly so, but so is Chaminade and the Boulangers, hardly forgotten.
It’s appropriate that Bonis starts the programme as her cycle of three beautifully orchestrated and melodically rich pieces, that focus on Ophelia and Salome, as well as The Dream of Cleopatra – all relatively small in scale, but conceptually expansive – offer irrefutable evidence of her consistent level of imaginative, technical excellence. Henriette Renié meanwhile is represented by a very Franckian Cello Sonata that modulates into Fauréan lyricism in its finale. The remainder of this first volume is given over to the tenor-piano team of Cyrille Dubois and Tristan Raës, who perform a sequence of songs by Cécile Chaminade, Hedwige Chrétien, Marie Jaëll, Rita Strohl and the increasingly prominent figure of Charlotte Sohy. Chrétien’s songs ‘au bord de l’eau’ share a suggestive rippling motion with those of Reynaldo Hahn and though they lack Hahn’s memorability, they are witty – try the aperçu-like L’Ondine. Jaëll offers a Lisztian brace whereas Rita Strohl’s Sonnet flares powerfully into life. Sohy however impresses the most, her settings from Les Méditations being fluid and concise, the final one a melismatic cry of joy.
The second disc reprises the variety of the first. Chaminade’s Six Pièces romantiques was written for piano four-hands and these salon character pieces are charming examples of her writing. Of sterner stuff is Strohl’s Grande Fantaisie-quintette. This big, four-movement piece, written in 1886, is richly romantic and quasi-improvised in effect, with a loquacious and fulsome sense of projection. It contains a near-obligatory fugato and the finale is a long Theme and Variations, elegantly characterised (with another fugal section) and full of vivid, suite-like qualities. The disc is capped by Sohy’s Symphony of 1917, which opens with an expressively expansive opening, moves into a skittish scherzo with a ripely upholstered and lyrical B section and then ratchets tension in the finale; a splendidly conceived work in the tradition of d’Indy and Franck. Sample much more of her music on the La Boîte à Pepites label.
There’s another symphony on the third disc, Louise Farrenc’s Third, a deftly orchestrated rather Mendelssohnian affair with Beethovenian buttressing in the finale – no better and no worse than many symphonies of its type written around 1850. Mel Bonis is represented on this disc again with her solo piano music ranging compositionally from 1895 to 1923 and full of Gallic clarity and aqueous appeal, Debussy and the salon. Nadia Boulanger’s three pieces for cello and piano are brief and the last of them is by some way the most zestful. The disc ends with the most dramatic work, Marie Jaëll’s Ossiane (1879), a bipartite orchestral piece with a role for a soprano in the second half of the diptych – moody and evocative. It only lasts ten minutes but it’s well worth getting to know.
Chaminade’s Callirhoé is a suite de ballet written when she was 30 and one of the early works that cemented her reputation. It’s deftly orchestrated, neatly organised and light-hearted. Much earlier is a set of Huit Études mélodiques by Virginie Morel, one of only two composers in the set to have been born – just – in the eighteenth century. They’re enjoyable, and show some style, but aren’t especially distinctive. A set of Bonis songs follows, composed over the decades, followed by Jeanne Danglas’s L’Amour s’éveille, a fluffy waltz, played by Les Siècles under François-Xavier Roth. The final piece on this disc is Pauline Viardot’s Violin Sonatine of 1873, a charming piece with little antique features.
Mel Bonis’ Cello Sonata (1905) opens CD 5, a work whose confidence nevertheless strikes a rather nebulous effect until the finale, a movement of eloquence and vitality. Her suite of waltzes for piano four-hands is an ingenious set. Viardot, herself a famous opera singer, contributes a sequence of songs for mezzo and piano, sensitively set examples from a variety of poets, and some anonymous ones too. The Havanaise has lashings of coloratura panache to remind one that Viardot was the daughter of Manuel García and sister of La Malibran. As with a number of the songs, I find the voices, whether – as here – that of mezzo Aude Extrémo, or elsewhere tenor Cyrille Dubois (the most well represented siger), somewhat too far back in the acoustic. Chaminade’s Flute Concertino is an excuse for avian curlicues, not that any excuse is needed in this witty showpiece. Charlotte Sohy’s 1910 Piano Sonata embeds attractive contrasts and is in the best, clean French style.
The sixth disc includes Nadia Boulanger’s stormy and passionate La Sirène, a three-scene half-hour work for three singers and orchestra that gradually generates a late-Romantic richness that, in places, sounds almost Straussian in its rapture. By contrast, the piano four-hands Voix du printemps by Marie Jaëll is all lightness and charm. Mel Bonis’s selection of solo piano pieces, occasionally flecked by impressionism, is principally dainty, witty and colouristic whilst her piano four-hands Six Pièces à quatre mains (dont deux très faciles) are more examples of succinct Gallic character pieces. Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne and Cortège are two of best-known pieces in the box and fit perfectly in the selection.
The highlights of CD 7 include Augusta Holmès’s Ludus pro patria: Interlude, La Nuit et l’Amour, a succulent six-minute piece that would have made a perfect lollipop for Beecham, and the large-scale Piano Trio No.2 of Farrenc with its delightful central Theme and Variations. The two songs by Jeanne Danglas have been perceptively chosen, as the passion of one plays off against the lighter element of the other. The ensuing sequence of songs by diverse composers goes for maximum contrast by composer – for example the confident mid-nineteenth century aura of one of Clémence de Grandval’ songs is contrasted with the intimacy of her other song. I’d never heard of Marie-Foscarine Damaschino, whose trio of songs – two are poems by Hugo – are rather Germanic. Madeleine Jaeger’s brace reprise the theme; an eager, lithe setting followed by a warm lyric one.
The final disc opens with a major work by Holmès, the orchestral piece, Andromède (1899), an ominous, brass-flecked symphonic poem of Straussian dimensions but cast in a broadly Franckian idiom. Hélène de Montgeroult, the oldest composer in the box, having been born in 1764, is receiving an increasing number of recordings lately. Her Piano Sonata Op.5 No.2 has its share of Beethovenian impressions but its central Aria is lovely and its finale is suitably fuoco. Viardot is represented in this last disc by five selections from her Douze Mélodies sur des poésies russes, rich in melancholy and expertly set. The disc ends, perhaps fittingly, with one of the heroines of the box, the abundantly gifted Mel Bonis, whose Album pour les tout-petits is a long sequence of tiny character studies for children. It reflects yet another side of this communicative composer and reflects an ‘in the round’ look at these generations of French composers, a selection unafraid to present, without judgement or allocation of hierarchy, salon, vocal, chamber, symphonic and tone poems alike.
The performances are uniformly excellent despite my reservations about the recorded sound of the vocal selections. The booklet contains no texts or translations and that is a liability; please don’t write in and tell me that the texts are available online somewhere. We’d all be far better off if they were printed in the booklet – and I do know that there are a lot of texts. There are some attractive colour and black and white photographs and reproductions, the orchestras involved have full personnels and each artist is represented by a small black and white photograph. The booklet texts are in French, English and German.
This is a box over which to linger. It contains much to admire and I happen to enjoy its non-hierarchical survey enormously.
Jonathan Woolf
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Contents
CD 1
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Le Rêve de Cléopâtre (c.1909)
Ophélie (c.1909)
Salomé (c.1909)
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Leo Hussain
Henriette Renié (1875-1956)
Sonate pour violoncelle et piano (1896/1920)
Victor Julien-Laferrière (cello) and Théo Fouchenneret (piano)
Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Rêve d’un soir (1891)
Veux-tu? (1898)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Hedwige Chrétien (1859-1944)
Petits Poèmes au bord de l’eau (1910)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Marie Jaëll (1846-1925)
Les Orientales: Rêverie (1893)
La Mer: Quatre heure du matin (1893)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Rita Strohl (1865-1941)
Bilitis: Berceuse (1898)
Sonnet (189, 7)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955)
Les Méditations (1922)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
CD 2
Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Six Pièces romantiques (1890)
Roberto Prosseda and Alessandra Ammara (piano four-hands)
Rita Strohl (1865-1941)
Grande Fantaisie-quintette (1886)
Ismaël Margain (piano) and Quatuor Hanson
Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955)
Symphonie en ut dièse mineur (1917)
Orchestre national de France/Débora Waldman
CD 3
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Barcarolle pour piano (1906)
La Cathédrale blesse (1915)
Romance sans paroles (1905)
Au crepuscule (1923)
La Chanson du route (1895)
François Dumont (piano)
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
D’un matin de printemps (1917)
Anna Agafia (violin) and Frank Braley (piano)
Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)
Symphonie No. 3 (1847)
Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est/David Reiland
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
Trois Pièces, for cello and piano (1914)
Victor Julien-Laferrière (cello) and Théo Fouchenneret (piano)
Marie Jaëll (1846-1925)
Ossiane (1879)
Anaïs Constans (soprano)/Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Leo Hussain
CD 4
Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Callirhoé, suite de ballet (1887)
Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est/David Reiland
Virginie Morel (1799-1869)
Huit Études mélodiques (1857)
Marie Vermeulin (piano)
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Vers le pur amour [Songe] (undated)
Un soir (1908)
Viens (1888)
Viola (1914)
Immortelle tendresse (1910)
Invocation (1887)
Élégie sur le mode antique (1918)
Yann Beuron (tenor) and David Zobel (piano)
Jeanne Danglas (1871-1915)
L’Amour s’éveille (1911)
Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910)
Sonatine for violin and piano
Anna Agafia (violin) and Frank Braley (piano)
CD 5
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Cello Sonata (1905)
Victor Julien-Laferrière (cello) and Théo Fouchenneret (piano)
Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944)
Concertino pour flûte et orchestre
Claire Le Boulanger (flute)/Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est/David Reiland
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Suite en forme de valses (1898)
Roberto Prosseda and Alessandra Ammara (piano four-hands)
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910)
Aimez-moi (1886)
Haï Luli! (1880)
Ici-bas tous les lilas meurent (1887)
Solitude (1843)
Les Filles de Cadix (1887)
Havanaise (1880)
L’Absence (1844)
Aude Extrémo (mezzo-soprano) and Étienne Manchon (piano)
Charlotte Sohy (1887-1955)
Piano Sonata (1910)
Marie Vermeulin (piano)
CD 6
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
La Sirène (1908)
Anaïs Constans (soprano), Aude Extremo (mezzo-soprano), François Rougier (tenor)/Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Leo Hussain
Marie Jaëll (1846-1925)
Voix du printemps (1885)
Roberto Prosseda and Alessandra Ammara (piano four-hands)
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Mélisande (1922)
Desdémona (1913)
Omphale (1910)
Ophélie (c.1909)
Viviane (1909)
Phoebé (1909)
Salomé (1909)
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Nocturne (1911)
Cortège (1914)
Anna Agafia (violin) and Frank Braley (piano)
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Six Pièces à quatre mains (dont deux très faciles)
Roberto Prosseda and Alessandra Ammara (piano four-hands)
CD 7
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903)
Ludus pro patria: Interlude, La Nuit et l’Amour (1888)
Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est/David Reiland
Louise Farrenc (1804-1875)
Piano Trio (1844)
Alexandre Pascal (violin), Héloïse Luzzati (cello), Célia Oneto Bensaid (piano)
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903)
Contes divins: Chemin du ciel (1893)
Les Sept Ivresses (1882) L’amour: Le vin
Jeanne Danglas (1871-1915)
Du cœur aux lèvres (1913)
L’Amour s’éveille (1911)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Marthe Braccquemond (1898-1973)
Trois Mélodies (1922) Le cormorant: Au bord du lac
Clémence de Grandval (1828-1907)
Le Bohémien (1865)
Sacrifice (1885)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Marie-Foscarine Damaschino (1844-1921)
À une femme (1889)
L’Enfant (1878)
J’ai dans mon cœur (1887)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Madeleine Jaeger (1868-1905)
La Chanson du route (1891)
Les Étoiles mortelles (1891)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Marthe Grumbach (1871-1932)
À Néré (1915)
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
Madeleine Lemairey (fl. early 20th century)
Six Mélodies (1913) Clair de lune: Heure exquise
Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano)
CD 8
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903)
Andromède (1899)
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Leo Hussain
Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836)
Piano Sonata Op.5 No.2 (1811)
Mihály Berecz (piano)
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910)
Douze Mélodies sur des poésies russes; selection (1886): L’Orage, Géorgienne, Berceuse cosaque, Évocation, Les ombres de minuit
Aude Extremo (mezzo-soprano), Étienne Manchon (piano)
Clémence de Grandval (1828-1907)
Andante et Intermezzo (1889)
Alexandre Pascal (violin), Héloïse Luzzati (cello), Célia Oneto Bensaid (piano)
Mel Bonis (1858-1937)
Album pour les tout-petits (1913)
Nathalia Milstein (piano)
