French Orchestral Favourites
Sinfonia of London/John Wilson
rec. 2023-25, Church of St Augustine, Kilburn, London
Chandos CHSA5379 SACD [69]
To say that the programme here offers an anthology of bon-bons is an understatement; it has clearly been devised to be of popular appeal and is none the worse for that. Besides, anyone who doesn’t acknowledge that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a programmatic masterwork is deluded. Obviously no one who has seen Fantasia can dissociate the cartoon visuals from the music but that hardly matters. It his played here with subtlety and élan, bringing out every orchestral colour and building cunningly over its ten minutes to sustain tension; the climax starting at 8:17 has real orchestral power and the magician’s arrival is splendidly climactic. The sheepish postlude is gently delivered – great fun.
The contrast with Debussy’s dreamy Clair de lune is well worked; we are in an entirely different world of plangent woodwind and singing strings – then again, the leap to the brassy circus dance of Chabrier’s Joyeuse Marche provides an almost wrenching change if mood. We return to the diffuse diaphanous side of French music with Ravel’s windy, wispy, maritime fantasy Une barque sur l’océan – all trilling flutes and strumming harps. Its aesthetic kinship with Debussy’s La mer is much in evidence, although Ravel’s is the more intimate work and Wilson’s orchestra retains that sense of smaller-scale experience rather than recreating Debussy’s more panoramic vision.
Saint-Saëns’ demonic night-piece, however, always seems to emerge as longer and more epic than its short duration of six or seven minutes would suggest. John Mills’ scordatura-tuned lead violin is suitably eery.
The most familiar music here are the suites from Carmen, totalling 35 minutes, which is half the programme. Isolating the music from the vocal output might be a bit painful to opera buffs but it has the effect of making one realise what good music it is, sung or orchestrated; the range of colours and moods here is triumphantly realised by the Sinfonia of London. Tempi and phrasing are ideal throughout and the sound is impeccable; details such as the correct distancing for the trumpet/bugle call opening track 11, La garde montante, are carefully engineered for atmosphere.
Extensive notes by Richard Langham Smith provide a neat, contextualised and entertaining background to enhance listening pleasure.
Ralph Moore
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Contents
Paul Dukas (1865-1935)
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (1896-97)
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Suite bergamasque: Clair de lune (1883- rev. 1888)
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894)
Joyeuse Marche (1883- orch. 1888)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Une barque sur l’océan M43/3 (orchestral version) (1904-05)
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Danse macabre, Op. 40 (1874)
Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Suites from Carmen (c.1885):
I. Les Toréadors
II. Prélude
III. Aragonaise
IV. Les Dragons d’Alcala
V. Habanera
VI. La Garde montante
VII. Intermezzo
VIII. Marche des Contrebandiers
IX. Séguedille
X. Chanson du Toréador
XI. Nocturne
XII. Danse bohême
