Elsa Barraine: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2; Illustration symphonique pour Pogromes d’Andre Spire; La Mise au tombeau du Titien (CPO)
★★★☆☆
The second symphony by this unsung French composer has been included on this summer season’s BBC Proms, and I wished to get conversant in it earlier than deciding whether or not to go.
Barraine (1910-1999) had an eventful life. Daughter of the principal cello of the Paris Opéra, she attended the identical Conservatoire class as Olivier Messiaen, and received the distinguished Prix de Rome.
Her first symphony is dated 1931, the second 1938. She joined the Communist Occasion within the late Nineteen Thirties and the Résistance throughout the German Occupation. Put up-Battle she taught on the Conservatoire, was an inspector on the Ministry of Tradition and wrote music in reward of Vietnam and Could Day.
Intrigued? Moi, aussi.
The second symphony lasts 17 minutes, in three actions. It makes assured statements for massed brass, has whimsical moments for oboe, and doesn’t dally too lengthy over anybody theme. The language is extra Mahler than Messiaen, with tummy rumblings of Wagner and Magnard. Strive as I would, I couldn’t discover a voice that declares itself to be Barraine. Solely the finale, with a ‘je m’en fou’ form of defiance, means that the composer is a Parisian of fun-loving propensities, probably a hat-tip to her instructor Paul Dukas.
The primary symphony, eight minutes longer, is undercooked. The piece I actually favored on this report is a 1953 funereal reflection on Titian’s tomb, opening with the Dies irae on solo piano and growing in surprising instructions. The WDR Symphony Orchestra performs solidly beneath Elena Schwarz’s course. You have got surprise why one of many well-funded French orchestras didn’t do that first.
I’d like to listen to extra of Elsa Barraine’s later work, however to explain her, as this album does, as ‘some of the important composers of the twentieth century’ is absurd. Barraine was, and stays, a composer in quest of a voice.
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Norman Lebrecht is without doubt one of the most widely-read commentators on music, tradition and cultural politics. He’s an everyday presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Road Journal, Bloomberg, Standpoint, Sinfini and different publications. His weblog, Slipped Disc, is among the many most generally learn cultural websites on-line, breaking unique tales and campaigning towards human abuse and acts of injustice within the cultural industries.
