The French Music Exploration thread

[hopefullytrusting]

**PS/Edit: To the extent that cultural differences exist within a single country, describing me as being from Sydney just because I was born there would be somewhat upsetting.

One of these is Madiel, I won't say which:



I've been really digging into they music of Guillaume de Machaut lately, and I loved it from the first, such dissonant harmonies. :-)

[Mandryka]

I've been really digging into they music of Guillaume de Machaut lately, and I loved it from the first, such dissonant harmonies. :-)

If it's the harmonic language which attracts you, try this

[hopefullytrusting]

If it's the harmonic language which attracts you, try this

This is so badass. Thanks.

[San Antone]

Now that I think of it, a thread about "Spanish" music written by non-Spanish composers would be quite interesting and long.

Since this is a thread abut French composers, Bizet's Carmen might combine on and off topic aspects.   

[Mandryka]

This is so badass. Thanks.

If you can get hold of it, try this one -- I can always let you have it.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unrequited-Music-Guillaume-Liber-Unusualis/dp/B00027P9OI

[pjme]

When Elsa Barraine composed her Second Symphony in 1938, Europe was on the brink of World War II. Nazi Germany, which had already annexed Austria, was now eyeing Czechoslovakia. A week after the premiere of this work by the Orchestre National, France signed the Munich Agreement, abandoning the Sudetenland to Hitler's troops. A context that was anything but anecdotal for the young composer, who was about to join the Communist Party, and who would subtitle her symphony "Voïna" - "the war" in Russian. "I called it Voïna because it was war.

In 38, we knew there would be war, you would have had to be crazy not to notice it", the musician would confide many years later. Barraine wrote her symphony shortly after receiving the commission for a "symphonic work" by decree of the Ministry of National Education and Fine Arts on May 5, 1938. This commission program was an event in the musical world: the State had never financed composition outside of specific occasions, and this first edition was also aimed at female composers.

Elsa Barraine chose to write a symphony and called upon a large orchestra emphasizing the woodwinds. Its three short movements use traditional forms of the classical symphony by condensing them. However, her symphony is not neoclassical in the sense that it would pastiche or take up classical elements with distance. The genre is used here for its dramatic dimension. The "program" that accompanies it (subtitle and title of the slow movement) appears from the first listening: war for the first movement, death and mourning for the second and finally the return to life for the third. After an Allegro in C minor in sonata form and of a menacing character, follows a slow movement (in G minor) unfolding a painful funeral march. The finale in C major, 7, with the appearance of a popular dance, then appears as a rebirth. This plot is not without evoking Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony, which exalted the revolutionary artist triumphing over adversity.

[Roy Bland]

01 - D'un matin de printemps, Lili Boulanger, orch. François Branciard
02 - Concerto pour clarinette et orchestre d'harmonie, Andante, Ida Godkowsky
03 - Concerto pour clarinette et orchestre d'harmonie, Perpetuum mobile, Ida Godkowsky
04 - Concerto pour clarinette et orchestre d'harmonie, Final, Ida Godkowsky
05 - Hommage à Rameau, Lent – Allegro Brioso, Germaine Tailleferre, orch. Désiré Dondeyne
06 - Hommage à Rameau, Andante cantabile, Germaine Tailleferre, orch. Désiré Dondeyne
07 - Hommage à Rameau, Allegro spiritoso, Germaine Tailleferre, orch. Désiré Dondeyne
08 - Concerto pour trompette et orch d'harmonie, Dolcissimo – Andante cantabile, Ida Godkovski, orch Désiré Dondeyne
09 - Concerto pour trompette et orch d'harmonie, Volubile – Prestissimo, Ida Godkovski, orch Désiré Dondeyne
10 - Concerto pour trompette et orch d'harmonie, Final – Vivace con altezza, Ida Godkovski, orch Désiré Dondeyne

Obscure label CORELIA.
Pierre Walter is conductor of the Musique des Gardiens de la Paix since 2008.

Thanks for appreciation but here said that label is
www.cristalrecords.com

[Mandryka]

This one has some very interesting music IMO, maybe the most interesting Greif I've heard - and a top class pianist to boot. Always good to hear the composer play I think. Note also that the great Henri Barda makes an appearance here. Streaming everywhere.


There's a complex history to dig into with this composer - he had some sort of crisis which stopped him composing for a long time, and then he found the will to go back to it. The first piano piece here, Sonate de Guère it's called, sounds quite different from other music by Greif that I've heard - and rather less comfortable (in a good way.)

Returning to Olivier Greif's Sonate de Guère this morning, I thought to myself - this is latter day Brahms and Schumann. The sonata is in the same tradition, aesthetic, as their piano sonatas.

[Mandryka]

I hadn't even heard of Olivier Greif until I started to explore Koechlin, and saw that Quintette Syntonia had been championing his music. It looks to me like he is  very highly thought of in France, but English speaking audiences are hardly aware of him. Just compare the wikipedia articles in the two languages, if only for size

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Greif

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivier_Greif

As far as the music is concerned, his voice is not at all experimental - think Britten. Deeply serious, rather beautiful, well made music. I'm focussing on the second quartet, which amongst other things, sets some sonnets by Shakespeare.

Another composer who has good things to offer methinks. Should I have said "Yet another composer . . ."  It feels like that, but I guess you can never have too much of a good thing.



A few things are streaming, but it looks like there's a substantial discography. Look at this



http://www.abbreportages.fr/component/option,com_virtuemart/page,shop.browse/category_id,19/Itemid,26/

Back to Greif's second quartet. The music feels really authentic - nothing pretentious about it, nothing designed to épater la gallérie. Nothing original from the point of view of harmony or rhythm as far as I can see - he's happy to express himself with common practice tonality, but because it's genuine, or appears to be, it sounds new rather than pastiche. I like it very much.

 

[Roy Bland]

[Roy Bland]

during WWII
https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03614839/document

[Roy Bland]