Jean Françaix (1912-1997)
L’Apocalypse selon Saint-Jean – Oratorio fantastique (1939-42)
Piano Concerto in D (1932-36)
Tatiana Probst (soprano); Daïa Durimel (alto); Patrick Garayt (tenor); Jean-Gabriel Saint-Martin (baritone)
Jean Françaix (piano)
Orchestre Français d’Oratorio/Jean-Pierre Loré (Saint-Jean)
Orchestre de l’ORTF/Georges Prêtre (concerto)
rec. 22 November 1960 (concerto)French text and English translation included
Le Palais des Dégustateurs PDD044 [83]

This pairing is a tart one, in two senses. First, that a fascinating archive entry from the 1960s is married up with a state of the art modern recording; second, that a fairly stern and epic oratorio is juxtaposed with an insouciant concerto. Do these things really matter? Probably not. They are by the same composer and he is the soloist in the Concerto. The scores are from broadly the same period. The differences simply radiate different aspects of Françaix’s character.

The Apocalypse (The Bible’s Book of Revelation) has drawn the attention of various twentieth century composers including Franz Schmidt, Eugene Goossens, Henk Badings, Hilding Rosenberg (in his stunning Fourth Symphony), Vaughan Williams and Gian-Carlo Menotti. All six wrote works derived from its pages. These date from the years 1925 to 1953. Françaix’s Oratorio Fantastique falls in the middle of that date range at about the same time as Schmidt’s Book of the Seven Seals. The Schmidt and the Françaix are two very different propositions from opposing cultures that were lurching towards the Second World War.

Francaix’s L’Apocalypse is rara avis and is in four parts: a short meditative Prologue and three grouped segments: totalling 20 tracks. Each segment is here accorded its own track.  The solo voices are resonantly forward and sonorous and sound nicely with the sometimes slim tones of the orchestra (try trs. 4 and 12). The Letter to the Seven Churches sets out the stall of the solo voices and prepares the ground for the crushing choral grandeur of The Vision of the Throne of God with its use of full forces. Françaix’s is a blazing voice of his own; more Franck than Messiaen. Françaix is not all about vocal weight en masse or en solo. Try the brass, harp and gong accompaniment in the Breaking of the four seals (tr. 5). The Copland-like clarion quality in Vision of the Seven Trumpets (tr. 8) impresses, and note the way the composer intricately threads the solo voices with the awe-struck trumpet line. The Abyss is imaginatively portrayed (tr. 10). Textures are applied with great care rather than piled dense and high. Effectively a trot-galop, The Invasion of the 200 Million Horsemen (tr. 11) is just a shade jolly but gathers momentum and illustrative weight. Franz Schmidt would have made this more colossal and horror-struck; qualities not in short supply when we get to The Combat of Michael and the Dragon (tr. 14) and Gog and Magog (tr. 19). Even more of the hunted and hunting feel is projected immediately we get to The Beast of the Earth (tr 16). Le Millenium (tr. 18) is ecstatically pastoral – calm and collected. The final Celestial Jerusalem (Holy City) has a satin burnish from the massed choirs and achieves an ascension, goaded higher and higher by all concerned. It is synthesises devout and ecstatic and reassuringly is no stranger to oddball touches.

L’Apocalypseis presented here in a refreshingly modern recording which I suspect is no older than 2020. In the documentation I cannot see an exact date or details of the recording location. In the booklet photos the venue is surely a grand hall; as to the specifics I am at a loss. Can anyone help out?

Francaix’s oratorio deploys for solo voices (soprano, alto, tenor and bass), choirs and two orchestras. One orchestra comprises pairs of flutes, oboes, harps, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, four percussion and strings. The other includes flute, three clarinets, three saxophones, four bassoons, cornet, trombone, percussion, organ, harmonium, accordion, mandolin, electric guitar and pairs of violins and double basses. We are told that only two French performances have been recorded since 1962, in 1999 and 2024, both conducted by Jean-Pierre Loré.

The Françaix of the four-movement Piano Concerto is another work of the 1930s although radically different from the Oratorio. It is light-hearted and elegant and lasts some 17 minutes against the Oratorio’s 66 minutes. The sound is cleanly presented and very good, if a shade boxy. Each of its four movements is allocated its own track. The dancing insouciance of the ideas in the first and final movements offsets the slow-blooming, melodious romance of the central episodes. Carefree joy is echoed in the playing of the composer and Prêtre’s orchestra. This all takes me back to the work by which I came to discover Françaix: his catchy l’Horloge de Flore for oboe and orchestra. In this connection Françaix could easily ‘read across’ as a sort of French Malcolm Arnold. The Concerto would rub shoulders delightfully with Arnold’s Concerto for Piano Duet and Constant Lambert’s Rio Grande.

There’s a fine Françaix orchestral collection on Hyperion. Toccata have paid court to his music for string orchestra and Nimbus have been characteristically attentive and perceptive, across 3 CDs, to his music for solo and multiple pianos. Wergo weighed in with a 3 CD set for the composer’s 100^th anniversary. Speaking of Wergo, a connoisseur label, they have also contributed a recording of L’Apocalypse selon Saint-Jean (WER66322) but it has not been in wide circulation. Even so, his music, through no fault of its own, has a long way to go before it can vie in the popularity stakes with Poulenc or Ibert.

The sung text of the Oratorio is printed in the booklet. Background notes are in French and English and so is the sung text. The booklet uses an agreeable font size.

The CD arrives with the purchaser, not in a jewel case, but in one of those stiff card folds into which is glued the booklet and the plastic mounting for the disc.

By the way, the 83-minute disc presented no problem to my ancient CD player; not always so when it comes to CDs with a playing time exceeding 80 minutes.

Rob Barnett

Choirs
Français d’Oratorio; Élisabeth Brasseur; de Cernay la Ville; Choristes de Rambouillet, Guyancourt, Croissy, Orgeval, Paris