French Music

[shamokin88]

Shamokin88 here. I have been exploring older discussions. I'm not certain if the question of the André Jolivet symphonies has been answered to everyone's satisfaction but I can provide not only 2 and 3 - if a French Solstice CD is out-of-print - but his 1940 Symphonie des Danses with George Szell and the Cleveland O as well. The Symphony for Strings is perhaps still available on Timpani.

I have always enjoyed what I have heard by Casadesus; music without issues, simply for the pleasure of it but without trifling.

[Dundonnell]

The Jolivet Symphony No.3 can still be obtained on the Solstice cd to which you refer.

The Symphony No.2 is the missing one however. If you can provide that one it would be very much appreciated

[Arbuckle]

I did a little more research and as to the Georges Migot Piano concerto, the details are:

Mvt 1. Prelude. Tres modere, avec souplesse
Mvt 2. Choral. Andante tres modere
Mvt 3. Final. Allegrement decide

Jacqueline Eymar, Piano (and dedicatee), Orchestre Philharmonique de l'ORTF, Manuel Rosenthal (June 26 1964)

[eschiss1]

I have a tape of no.2 but only digitized part of it (the part that fit on a CD- the Heurté first movement and part of the Fluide second... - after Jolivet sym.1/Jolivet and Myaskovsky 16/Ivanov).  Will see about digitizing the rest of no.2 sometime soon (have to first find tape... then - well, have to first find tape ...)

[Dundonnell]

I have uploaded my first digitised tape-recording

It is a BBC broadcast from 1973 of:

Jean Martinon:

Symphony No.4 "Altitudes"(1966)

      French National Radio Orchestra(the composer)

Please advise me of any problems

[eschiss1]

Ah. Martinon recorded his 4th symphony with the Chicago Sym. and there is also a broadcast tape in a library archives I see with the Philadelphia Orchestra via WFLN. Have heard probably one of those two- probably not the French orchestra recording - on WFLN back when I could receive it in college (before it became, if memory serves, a more popular-music-oriented station, and was at the time a very adventurous classical station - it was good to be within broadcast range of it then over in New Jersey - got to hear a lot of works and composers for the first time.)

[pianoconcerto]

http://www.mediafire.com/?ptfq3e044wub2

Georges Migot  1891-1956
Piano Concerto
  Unsure of performers, announcer states pianist is Jacqueline ?Ymar, but doesn't state orchestra

This is the information I have on this recording:

2Radio France GRC 9140/41 [French Broadcasting System In North America, Program 734]:  Jacqueline Eymar/ORTF/Manuel Rosenthal

If anyone needs additional information on recorded works for piano and orchestra, please contact me.  My online discography of such works lists just the composers, titles, dates.  I keep names of performers, labels, etc. offline in a larger file.

[eschiss1]

According to http://allmusic.com/album/rivier-symphonies-for-strings-w56630/tracks the movements of the Rivier symphony 3 are
*Allegretto quasi pastorella
*Vivo e leggiero
*Lento e nostalgico
*Allegro molto e fugato

[Dundonnell]

According to http://allmusic.com/album/rivier-symphonies-for-strings-w56630/tracks the movements of the Rivier symphony 3 are
*Allegretto quasi pastorella
*Vivo e leggiero
*Lento e nostalgico
*Allegro molto e fugato

Again, thanks for this additional info' on-

Jean Rivier(1896-1987):

Symphony No.3 for strings(1937)

Moscow Conservatory Chamber Orchestra/Mikhail Terian.

BBC Radio broadcast from 1974/1975


....which is now available for download in the appropriate section.

[Rainolf]

I've now listened to Koechlin's 2nd Symphony. What an amazing and powerful piece!Many thanks to Latvian for sharing it. Koechlin shurely was one of the best orchestrators ever, and a great contrapunctist, too. Why was this masterwork never recorded commercially? I can only shake my head about this.

[semloh]

I've now listened to Koechlin's 2nd Symphony. What an amazing and powerful piece!Many thanks to Latvian for sharing it. Koechlin shurely was one of the best orchestrators ever, and a great contrapunctist, too. Why was this masterwork never recorded commercially? I can only shake my head about this.

My problem is t hat I can't see the connection between movements - and so the structure or integrity of the work as a whole. I would be happy to receive advice!

[eschiss1]

Given that the 2nd symphony (like most? of Koechlin's works entitled symphony except maybe for the Seven Stars Symphony- and I'm not sure about that one...) is mostly made out of arrangements of earlier-composed pieces, with I gather only the 5th and final movement being entirely newly composed, if you're looking for a cyclic recycling or metamorph. of motives between movements à la Beethoven, Liszt, Holmboe and others- I wouldn't. What you have, I think , is
*fugue (on a subject of Ernest le Grand)
*Scherzo (arranged, I think, from a suite for bassoon)
*suite of 5 or 6 (one is optional? I forget) chorales (from different works - which doesn't mean he can't arrange them into a coherent progression and whole! )
*fugue on a theme of his friend Catherine Urner
*finale .

The transition from the rather solemn fugue- which I thought felt a bit like- well, I would not have been surprised to learn that it was an actual Baroque fugue arranged in ways that hid its origins... - to the much more contemporary and capricious scherzo - .. erm.

The premiere did not occur for a decade and occurred through the arrangement, efforts and energy of Carlos Chavez, I think, who got Jose Pablo Moncayo to conduct it, if I understand what I know of the story... before that (and after) the work has been rejected for performance quite often...
I go in part here by what I can read (for free, being cheap...) of Orledge's account in his book on Koechlin (available in partial preview at Google books and very interesting- only viewable in the USA I think, or perhaps a few other places. And on the basis of what I read, very recommendable and very interesting...)

("Charles Koechlin (1867-1950): His Life and Works (Contemporary Music Studies) ", unfortunately not presently available at Amazon. Maybe there's a newer version. Searching for it I find related books whose titles intrigue including one about Catherine Urner (1891-1942) - apparently his favorite American pupil- and Koechlin- I am guessing by the way that Koechlin was working on the symphony when she died, and now I wonder how she died... war-related?... Hrm. No - this provides a little more detail though not much. According to the book- Google preview- car accident. Arg.)

[Rainolf]

Thats interesting to read, that Koechlin's 2nd is a Pasticcio, Eric. When I first heard it, I had the impression of a planful designed piece. But it speaks for the composer, in my opinion, that he could make such an impression with four movements, that were firstly not composed to form a united symphony together.

The conception of the work however looks very clear und straightforward for me, even without thematic coherence, as if there was originaly a plan: slow fugue --> fast --> slow --> fast fugue. There is much contrast between the movements, but I would say, its this contrast, which binds them together: After the very large fugue at the beginning there's a good place for a completely different movement.

[semloh]

Thats interesting to read, that Koechlin's 2nd is a Pasticcio, Eric. When I first heard it, I had the impression of a planful designed piece. ......

Well, I suppose that's testimony to how very different our tastes in music are and how differently we hear music - hurrah! 

What it boils down to, as I read these comments, is that there is no intended unity to the symphony and no thematic coherence (i.e. it's a collage of 5 separate compositions), and any sense of unity consists only in alternating fast/slow movements, and beginnning and ending with a fugue. Hmm, I struggle with this as a listener.

[eschiss1]

Not having compared the movements in the symphony to the originals, I find it possible he may have made some adjustments - and chosen works that fit together in a sense that worked for him. (The idea, even if only approximately accurate, of his orchestrating a fugue on learning of the death of the composer of the theme of the fugue touches me, by the way...)
You have a point; objections that I almost have that tying together large-scale works using thematic transformation etc. is an artifact of Beethoven and later must be met by the objection that this is just not true- Mozart used such techniques for example (his father called it the thread, "il filo", I gather), as did his contemporaries, if not as often as with later generations.