Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Symphony No. 1, for orchestra: 1. Passacaille: Andante
2. Symphony No. 1, for orchestra: 2. Scherzo: Molto vivace
3. Symphony No. 1, for orchestra: 3. Intermezzo: Lento
4. Symphony No. 1, for orchestra: 4. Finale, con variazioni: Largamente - Allegro - Scherzo - Lento
5. Symphony No. 2: 'Le Double', for orchestra: 1. Animato, ma misterioso
6. Symphony No. 2: 'Le Double', for orchestra: 2. Andantino sostenuto
7. Symphony No. 2: 'Le Double', for orchestra: 3. Allegro fuocoso - Calmato

Disc 2:

1. L'arbre des songes, concerto for violin & orchestra: 1. Librement
2. L'arbre des songes, concerto for violin & orchestra: 1. Interlude
3. L'arbre des songes, concerto for violin & orchestra: 2. Vif
4. L'arbre des songes, concerto for violin & orchestra: 2. Interlude
5. L'arbre des songes, concerto for violin & orchestra: 3. Lent
6. L'arbre des songes, concerto for violin & orchestra: 3. Interlude
7. L'arbre des songes, concerto for violin & orchestra: 4. Large et anim�
8. Sonnets de Jean Cassou (3), for voice & piano or orchestra: J'ai r�v� que je vous portais entre mes bras
9. Sonnets de Jean Cassou (3), for voice & piano or orchestra: Il n'y avait que des troncs d�chir�s
10. Timbres, espace, mouvement, ou La Nuit �toil�e, for orchestra: No. 1
11. Timbres, espace, mouvement, ou La Nuit �toil�e, for orchestra: Interlude
12. Timbres, espace, mouvement, ou La Nuit �toil�e, for orchestra: No. 2
13. Pri�re pour Nous autre charnels, for 2 male voices & organ, JA 137 (AWV 113)

Disc 3:

1. M�taboles, for orchestra: 1. Incantatoire
2. M�taboles, for orchestra: 2. Lin�aire
3. M�taboles, for orchestra: 3. Obsessionel
4. M�taboles, for orchestra: 4. Torpide
5. M�taboles, for orchestra: 5. Flamboyant
6. Tout un monde lointain. . ., concerto for cello & orchestra: 1. Enigme
7. Tout un monde lointain. . ., concerto for cello & orchestra: 2. Regard
8. Tout un monde lointain. . ., concerto for cello & orchestra: 3. Houles
9. Tout un monde lointain. . ., concerto for cello & orchestra: 4. Miroirs
10. Tout un monde lointain. . ., concerto for cello & orchestra: 5. Hymne
11. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 1. Appels
12. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 2. Echos
13. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 3. Prismes
14. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 4. Espaces lointains
15. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 5. Litanies
16. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 6. Choral
17. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 7. Rumeurs
18. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 8. Soliloques
19. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 9. M�tamorphoses (sur le nom Sacher)
20. Myst�re de l'instant, for string orchestra, cimbalom & percussion: 10. Embrasement

Disc 4:

1. The Shadows of Time, for 3 children's voices & orchestra: 1. Les Heures
2. The Shadows of Time, for 3 children's voices & orchestra: 2. Ariel mal�fique
3. The Shadows of Time, for 3 children's voices & orchestra: 3. M�moire des ombres
4. The Shadows of Time, for 3 children's voices & orchestra: Interlude
5. The Shadows of Time, for 3 children's voices & orchestra: 4. Vagues de lumi�re
6. The Shadows of Time, for 3 children's voices & orchestra: 5. Dominante bleue?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #195117 in Music
• Released on: 2000-11-28
• Number of discs: 4
• Format: Box set
• Dimensions: .49 pounds

Customer Reviews

transcendent musical beauty
There is an unfinished quality to much contemporary classical music. For some composers, their pieces are studies for larger works ( ever in progress ), others revel in a fragmented brilliance, an apparently purposeful lack of purpose. Amidst these ( variously valuable ) diversions, there exist creators working in what I term the "authentic" classical tradition, striving for artistic achievement that lasts beyond the confines of the zeitgeist. These individualists operate in an aesthetic mode set apart from both the hidebound rules of nostalgic conservatism and the perpetual fragmentation of avant-garde radicalism. Henri Dutilleux ( born 1916 ) certainly is an individualistic composer.

Given the sensual, quasi-exotic beauty of his music, is it natural to link Dutilleux with the great French "impressionists". Music critics have for years mentioned a connection with Ravel but aside from perfection of craftsmanship, a much more convincing link can be made to the mysterious metamorphosis exemplified in the sound world of Claude Debussy. And, however strong his ties to an essentially Gallic refinement, Dutilleux has also quite clearly profited from familiarity with Bartok, Stravinsky, and Webern.

Henri Dutilleux reached musical maturity during the heyday of serialism, a style which the composer admits was an influence but which also had negative attributes ( "cultural terrorism" is how he characterized the fanatical side of the movement ). His own music defies easy categorization; it is unquestionably "modern" yet noticeably part of the European classical tradition. No matter how complex the harmony or orchestration, a sense of forward momentum and classically influenced "inevitability" is felt throughout his pieces. A seamless blend of the traditional and innovative caused an admiring contemporary ( Messiaen, another influence on Dutilleux ) to remark that the younger composer was in some ways more, in other ways less "advanced" than himself.

His 1st Symphony ( 1951 ) is a work of great skill but doesn't prefigure his mature work as much as his 2nd Symphony of 1959, which is full of Dutilleux "trademarks": plaintive, upward-spiraling figures on woodwinds and the use of "reverse variation" ( whereby the theme is revealed only at the end of the piece ). His composition from 1965, "Metaboles", a set of five interconnected orchestral episodes, prefigures his work in the more ambitious Cello Concerto of 1970 ( subtitled "Tout un Monde Lontain..." ). Similarly, "Timbres, Espace, Mouvement" (1978) has a strong influence on the orchestral textures of the Violin Concerto of 1985 ( "L'Arbre des Songes" ) .

As far as this 3 CD set is concerned, potential purchasers can be confident that the performances and engineering are excellent. However, I strongly recommend that interested listeners seek out the recordings of the cello and violin concertos featuring the dedicatees. Rostropovich's version is coupled with the Lutoslawski Concerto and Isaac Stern's recording is coupled with the Violin Concerto of Peter Maxwell-Davies.

Landmarks of modern French orchestral music
Henri Dutilleux has increasingly been regarded as one of the finest of living composers, and as his conservative-modernist style--derived from Debussy and Ravel, though more chromatic and less tonally-centered than either--has become less unfashionable his music has received an increasing number of recordings. Amongst the finest of these have been Yan-Pascal Tortelier's readings for Chandos, and this 4-CD boxed set contains Tortelier's three individual discs, plus a 22-minute bonus disc of a live performance (Tortelier again) of the composer's 1997 work The Shadows of Time. When released, this collection was a complete recording of all Dutilleux's acknowledged orchestral works: this is no longer true, as Dutilleux is still writing, although his post-Shadows work is yet to be recorded. (Hopefully Hans Graf's ongoing budget-price Arte Nova series of Dutilleux recordings will bring matters up to date.)

I have already reviewed the individual discs included on this set, so I will only describe the works briefly, but taken as a whole, they undoubtably rank as amongst the most important orchestral music of the post-war period. Chronologically speaking, they begin with the two symphonies. The first of these, completed in 1951, begins with a slow, mysterious passacaglia, follows it with an overly virtuosic scherzo, a deeply-felt nocturnal slow movement and a flamboyand finale. It is a considerable achievement, though it is some way from Dutilleux's fully mature style, unlike the Second Symphony, completed eight years later. This work is subtitled 'Le Double', as a concertino-like group of 12 players forms a counter-orchestra to the main band--though its function is not of a concerto grosso nature but merely to allow a much greater variety of colours and timbres. The first movement begins mysteriously, building to a dramatic climax. The slow movement (in which the counter-orchestra is particularly prominent) contains a wonderful range of musical colours, while the finale begins vigorously but lapses half-way through into a slow epilogue.

The 1964 work Métaboles is effectively a brief concerto for orchestra in five movements. The first four movements each showcase a different section of the orchestra--alternating fast and slow movements--and in the finale the whole orchestra comes together for a vigorous conclusion. Tout un monde lointain, a 1970 cello concerto based on the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, is a deliriously nocturnal work in five movements that combines delightful solo writing with some extraordinary orchestration, before fading out ambiguously. Perhaps the finest of Dutilleux's orchestral works is Timbres, espace, mouvement, a darkly ecstatic diptych inspired by Van Gogh's painting 'Starry Night'. Two powerfully visionary panels are separated by a forceful interlude for the orchestral cellos alone.

L'Arbre des songes, completed in 1985, is a dreamlike violin concerto in four movements that play without a break. Lyrical and fantastic in equal measure, it has often been described as one of the finest violin concerti of the 20th century, and I wouldn't dispute that rating. Mystère de l'instant is a 1989 work, a sequence of ten atmospheric 'snapshots' for strings and solo cimbalom. The first is an extraordinary evocation of a mass of flying birds; while the other nine are good, they don't quite live up to the first. Finally, The Shadows of Time is perhaps the only authentically angry work in Dutilleux's output. A meditation questioning the validity of music in a world capable of the Holocaust, it begins ambivalently with an evocation of ticking clocks against tense orchestral writing. A solo treble sings 'Why me? Why the star?' before the music builds to an angry climax. After an interlude and a second, equally angry climax, the finale returns to the ambivalent mood of the opening, and the work ends with return of the ticking clocks.

The performances on this set range from good to excellent, but whether the set will be of interest probably depends on whether one owns any of the individual discs. For those who do, or who only need a recording of The Shadows of Time, Hans Graf's first Arte Nova disc may prove more attractive, but those wanting the complete available works in one easy package will find this compilation well-nigh unbeatable.

Music for a Starry Night
The reason to buy this boxed set is not to acquire new, definitive interpretations of much represented music; it is to become acquainted with a composer who has had no prior integral recording. That is justification enough. The music of Henri Dutilleux (born 1916) manages to be unmistakably "modern" without being the slightest bit doctrinaire or off-putting: Dutilleux's roots go down deeply into the impressionist soil of Claude Debussy, although unlike Debussy, Dutilleux shows an interest in polyphonic complexity rather than in chord-based harmonic color as such. In addition, Dutilleux's structures usually correspond to what one can call "the symphonic" in a way that Debussy rarely essayed: and indeed his first two orchestral scores were symphonies (1951 and 1959). Like many composers in the aftermath of World War Two who refused to embrace the procedures of the "Second Viennese School," Dutilleux found himself somewhat marginalized. While Dutilleux received performances and commissions and was recorded over the years, he never enjoyed the cachet of, say, Pierre Boulez. In an essay on "The Symphony in France," published in "Paths to Modern Music" (1971), the astute Laurence Davies had to plead for Dutilleux, "a much underestimated composer outside his own country" whose "brilliantly clear textures" make his Second Symphony (subtitled "The Double") "an astounding achievement." On record, Rostropovich played the Cello Concerto and Stern his Violin Concerto; other works have been recorded here and there. The neglect is largely made up for in Yan Pascal Tortelier's comprehensive four-disc survey for Chandos, illustrated appropriately on the jewel-box and on the pamphlet by van Gogh's "Starry Night." On CD 1, Tortelier pairs the two symphonies. Davies valued the Second over the First Symphony, although he admitted the virtues of the latter, particularly its opening Passacaglia. The musical language of the First Symphony is close (by way of a known reference) to Frank Martin's: intensely chromatic without abandoning tonality. (Dutilleux's Passacaglia resembles Martin's free-standing endeavor of the same name in its full-orchestra version, available on a Chandos CD under Matthias Bamert). The two inner movements are a colorful Scherzo and a darkly colored slow movement. The Finale, like the First Movement, is a theme with variations - virtually a second passacaglia, but wider ranging in its moods than the First Movement. The Second Symphony pits a small orchestra of about ten instruments, including harpsichord and celesta, against the full orchestra, hence the appellation of "The Double." I imagine that this is a difficult score to record, as the spatial element resists transcribed representation. That said, this three-movement work is quite as fascinating and beautiful as its precursor. On CD 2, Tortelier gives us Dutilleux's Violin Concerto, "L'arbre des songes" ("The Tree of Dreams" [1985]), in a sequence of uninterrupted movements proper and interludes. This is Dutilleux the mystic, sharing certain penchants with Olivier Messiaen, although never sounding brash or vulgar, as Messiaen sometimes does. "The Tree of Dreams" is music for late-night listening. The "Two Sonnets by Jean Cassou" for baritone and orchestra, dating from the 1940s, show the composer working in a tradition of French orchestral song going back to Hector Berlioz and his "Nuits d'été." The score called "Timbres, espace, et mouvement avec interlude" (1978) takes its inspiration from van Gogh's "Starry Night." It depicts the awe of stellar delirium effectively - less wildly than Messiaen, be it said - yet with some strange and novel sounds. "Métaboles" (1964), on CD 3, again shows some kinship with Martin (think of "The Four Elements") and gives the impression of a symphony by another name. The Cello Concerto, entitled "Tout un monde lointain" (difficult convincingly to translate into English: "A Whole World Far Away"), is another essay in religious yearning and phantasmagoria. Like Berlioz, Dutilleux has a gift for melody: the concerto-format lets him exploit his talent, allotting the "singing role" to the solo instrument and supporting the solo line in a delicate web of hallucinatory accompaniment. The descriptive title comes from one of the Baudelaire poems that the concerto purports to "interpret." This is another link to Berlioz, who made one of the earliest settings of Baudelaire. "Delicacy" and "exquisiteness" are adjective that come to mind insistently as one listens to Dutilleux's music. One thinks of them as French traits par excellence. They appear again in "Mystère de l'instant," a quasi-concerto for cimbalom and strings - by no means so odd as it might seem. On CD 4, Tortelier gives us "The Shadows of Time" (1995), for voice and orchestra, which shows Dutilleux refining his mode of expression even further toward the seamless and translucent. With one minor quibble, I recommend this boxed set. The quibble is the shortness of the fourth disc. Chandos could easily have added a performance of Dutilleux's string quartet, "Ainsi la nuit," which would have turned a stinting measure into a fair one. Discs 1 - 3 are well filled.