December 23, 2013

  • Fabulous French Ballet Music

     

    Massenet: Ballet Music (Bacchus, Herodiade, Thais, Le Cid)
    Barcelona Symphony Orchestra/Patrick Gallois
    Naxos 8.573123
    Total Time:  77:55
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Jules Massenet (1842-1912) was one of the great composers of French Grand opera often setting epic stories to richly romantic music with somewhat Wagnerian overtones.  Massenet studied with Ambroise Thomas, another of those somewhat forgotten French dramatists, and his music perhaps shows his teacher’s stamp as well.  His reputation was essentially made with Manon in 1884 and later with his adaptation of Goethe’s Werther, premiered in 1892.  Today these two works tend to be his most oft-performed pieces.  But many of these operas featured wonderful ballet and incidental music, a feature of French opera since the Baroque.  Occasionally, one might also come across his symphonic suites as well.  Of the many incidental pieces, his best known, and most beloved work, is the “Meditation” which serves as an intermezzo in Thais.  This opera, as well as three others are all represented here in this new Naxos release recorded in October, 2012.  The dances appear often excerpted in collections of French music on disc otherwise so having these together here will be a real gift to French music lovers.

    The first suite is taken from Bacchus (1909).  The opera itself was a failure, though the ballet music from the third act and is set in the Indian forest.  It depicts a series of episodes involving fauns and satyrs, huntresses and bacchantes, a sort of black Sabbath wine baptism, and a final “Bacchanale.”   The faune and satyr music, and much of the lighter moments are reminiscent of Chabrier’s orchestral writing.  Beautiful themes play through each of these ten scenes making for a perfectly enjoyable selection from the opera.  At 20 minutes, it is perhaps a telling mark of Massenet’s unwillingness to bend to  modern trends.  The result is a great representation of his assured orchestral hand.

    The Biblical narrative of John the Baptist, Salome, and Herod come together in the epic Herodiade (1881).  The five sections of the ballet come later (in Act 4), during the banquet that occurs prior to John’s execution, and the final playing out of this infamous story.  Here Massenet crafts four brief dances.  They are all perfect examples of 19th-Century exoticism depicting Egypt, Babylon, Gaul, and Phoenicia.  Naxos has made this music available before in the collections of orchestral suites conducted by Jean Yves Ossonce with the New Zealand Symphony.  These are equally delightful miniatures, with the final dance being quite exciting and effective.

    The last two suites on this release were recently available on a Brilliant Classics re-issue of some Neville Marriner performances so it is good to have some more recent interpretations in the catalogue.  Thais features a ballet dream sequence where our hero, Athanael, lies dreaming of Thais while being tempted by the Seven Spirits of Temptation.  The juxtaposition of the monastic cell with these images is certainly a strikingly dramatic one and the tone of the music is much darker than that of the previous works on the disc.  There is a heavier chromaticism in the opening bars that provide a perfect level of unsettled eeriness with Wagnerian harmonic shifts hinted in the texture.  Some truly interesting harmonic work is also part of the seventh dance with dark unsettling music before a lighter whirling dance.  A little organ interlude adds to the religious aspects of the music as well.  The 24-minute sequence of dances is a fascinating contrast to the lighter music which opened the disc.

    The music from Le Cid (1885), returns us to exoticism with a series of dances in the Act 2 ballet where a celebration finds Massenet exploring Spanish dances popular in concert music of the time.  These tend to appear more frequently in concert with their wonderful Spanish flavors that French composers seemed to be so adept at adapting into great concert music in this period.

    Naxos has a gift at finding good regional orchestras with committed conductors to tackle lesser known works and such is the case here.  The Barecelona orchestra provides delightful and engaging performances here under their conductor, Patrick Gallois, former principal flute of the Orchestre National de France.  These are beautiful performances of some gorgeous and engaging music in this ample disc that allows fans of French music to explore the late 19th-Century style that was what the more familiar Impressionist and Modernist composers, more noted today, were reacting to in the period.  The wealth of wonderful thematic ideas and rich orchestration make this a wonderful treat.