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Excerpts
Excerpts

Orchestre de Paris / Klaus Mäkelä

Christel Loetzsch - Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Chœur de chambre accentus
Recorded the January 20, 2021 (Grande salle Pierre Boulez - Philharmonie)

Program

1.
Pierre Boulez
Initiale, pour sept cuivres
01:40
Excerpt
2.
Olivier Messiaen
Les offrandes oubliées
02:04
Excerpt
3.
Maurice Ravel
Concerto pour piano et orchestre "Pour la main gauche"
02:41
Excerpt
4.
Pierre Boulez
René Char
Le soleil des eaux (version 4, pour soprano, choeur et orchestre)
01:26
Excerpt
5.
Claude Debussy
La mer
02:24
Excerpt

As part of the second Pierre Boulez Biennial, this programme places two of his scores alongside the golden age of French music.

 Le Soleil des eaux is a major work from Boulez’s early period to which he returned multiple times in his career, creating new adaptations. Inspired by the poetry of René Char, it is presented here in its 1965 version. Debussy’s influence can already be seen, particularly in the fluid, glimmering orchestral writing of the first movement, whereas the second movement is more violent. In an altogether different register, Initiale is a fanfare for brass ensemble, with an energy that reaches hypnotic depths.

In the precision, objectiveness of the poetics, and heightened sense of colour, we can again see Boulez’s inheritance from Debussy in La Mer, with its rippled sounds, innovative orchestral lights and sprinkled, prismatic motifs. Ravel’s artistic universe, represented by the war-inspired Concerto for the Left Hand, is equally representative of this ethics of form and clarity, where the modernist approach never relinquishes a sense of restraint and control.

 

Distribution

Orchestre de Paris
Klaus Mäkelä, conducting
Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano
Christel Loetzsch, soprano
Chœur de chambre Accentus
Richard Wilberforce, choirmaster

Composers - Authors

Pierre Boulez
Claude Debussy
Olivier Messiaen
Maurice Ravel