French Connections: Music from the Parisian Stage

Couperin (arr. Ades) Les Baricades Mistérieuses

The title Les Baricades Mistérieuses is probably meant to be evocative rather than a reference to a specific object, musical or otherwise. Scott Ross, in a master class filmed and distributed by Harmonia Mundi, likens the piece to a train. This clearly cannot have been the precise image Couperin was trying to convey, but it is easy to hear in Les Baricades the image of a heavy but fast-moving object that picks up momentum. In that sense, the mysterious barricades are perhaps those which cause the “train” to slow down and sometimes stop.

The piece could almost be seen as a catalogue of the effects that can cause an energetic line (the piece is marked vivement) to slow down or stop naturally and elegantly: through the imperfect and perfect cadences at the end of each couplet, the cadence resulting in a unison E flat in the third couplet, the introduction and modification of sequences in both the treble and bass (third couplet), and through some of the more “unexpected” harmonies like the diminished D chord in the first couplet. This hypothesis seems to fit in with the pedagogical aims of Couperin’s music, since the composer presents himself as something of a specialist in building sound through legato, style luthé playing.

© Luke Arnason

Ravel Le Tombeau de Couperin 

Ravel Piano Concerto in G Major

1. Allegramente

      2. Adagio assai

      3. Presto

Ravel wrote two piano concertos – this work, and the concerto ‘for the left hand’ written for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost an arm in the First World War.  Ravel composed the two pieces simultaneously in 1930 and 1931, but they are very different, in part because of the unusual demands writing for a one-handed pianist imposed on the composer, and the distinctive dark timbre inevitably resulting from a work weighted towards the bass end of the piano.

The G major Concerto was written for Marguerite Long, and she gave its first performance in Paris, with Ravel conducting, in 1932.  It is in the conventional three movements (unlike the Left Hand work, which is in one continuous section), and from its opening shows the important influence of jazz on Ravel’s style by this point in his life. Ravel had, famously, refused to give Gershwin composition lessons on learning how much the younger man earned, saying he could teach him nothing useful, but it is clear that Gershwin’s own works, and in particular Rhapsody in Blue, had meant much to Ravel. The prominent melody for E flat clarinet with piano accompaniment is the most direct reference to Gershwin, but the whole movement owes its atmosphere to the jazz age of the 1920s, combined with Ravel’s reverence for Mozart and his compatriot Saint-Saëns.

The slow movement is a gorgeous song, stated initially by the piano and then taken up by the cor anglais, with the strings accompanying.  This is music which speaks entirely for itself, and gains nothing from any attempt at analysis.  The finale returns to the mood of the opening movement, with an even greater ‘swing’, and enormous wit and bravura.  The piano writing is always brilliant and vivacious, and the movement brings the work to a wholly satisfying conclusion.

© Ian Lush

Lili Boulanger (arr. Iain Farrington) D’un Matin de Printemps

The bronchial pneumonia that struck Lili Boulanger at the age of 2 resulted in constant ill health and a life that lasted less than 25 years. Her parents, and her famous and widely respected sister, the teacher and conductor Nadia, were trained and active musicians. She too displayed phenomenal musical talent, which her devoted family did everything to encourage. When she won the prestigious Prix de Rome at 19—she was the first woman to win it for music—it made international headlines. Her physical condition severely restricted her ability to answer the growing demand for her music. She created a small but consistently intriguing and attractive catalog of music that, to quote Claude Debussy, “undulates with grace.” It includes songs and choral works, piano and chamber pieces, and a handful of orchestral compositions. 

She composed the companion works D’un soir triste (On a Melancholy Evening) and D’un matin de printemps (On a Spring Morning) in 1917 and 1918. Shortly after composing the small-ensemble original versions, she transcribed them for orchestra. They were, alas, the final pieces she wrote with her own hand. The manuscripts, with their tiny notes, betray the increasing severity of her illness. 

A vast emotional gulf lies between them. D’un soir triste is almost funereal in its mood and its dark palette of colors, and it swells up to several harsh climaxes. It may reflect Boulanger’s awareness that death was imminent. The sharply contrasting and much briefer D’un matin de printemps is sweet, playful, and transparently scored.

© Don Anderson

Debussy Danses Sacrée et Profane

Debussy rescued the harp from a relatively subservient role in the nineteenth century orchestra where it usually appeared as one of many instrumental ingredients in the sonorous crescendos of mainstream composers.  In a language favouring imagination rather than realism, transparency of texture rather than richness through doubling, the harp could again become a solo instrument asserting its most individual personality.

These dances scored for harp and strings were composed in 1904 at the request of Pleyel, the inventor of the chromatic harp, for a competition at the Brussels Conservatory.  They exhibit in no small measure Debussy’s extraordinary understanding of the nature and technique of the instrument and the small string orchestra, often reduced to a string quartet, is treated with taste and sensibility.

© Michael Whewell

Mozart Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K.297 ‘Paris’ 

1.           Allegro assai

2.          Andante

3.         Allegro

In March 1778 Mozart visited Paris for the third time in his life. On his arrival he found that he was no longer received with open arms. The reason was that he had evidently ceased to be the delightful infant prodigy of the past. He began to despise the Parisians who had formerly adored him, and he was shocked by the futile quarrels between the supporters of the two composers Gluck and Puccini. Having visited Mannheim on his way to Paris, where he had heard the excellent resident orchestra, he found the standard of musicianship in Paris deplorable. More serious was the fact that his former patrons had lost interest in him, and that his hopes of securing a permanent employment in the city were unfounded. But the worst blow was that his mother, who had always been a great comfort to him, was no longer able to give him the support he needed. She fell ill soon after his arrival in Paris and died there on 3 July 1778.

Mozart made desperate efforts to overcome these adversities, though Baron Grimm, who had been his principal protector in the past, did not think so: “He is too naïve, too inactive, too easily taken in, too little concerned with working for the future,” he wrote to Leopold Mozart, Wolfgang’s father.

How wrong Grimm was (at least as regards Mozart’s efforts to achieve success) was proved by the music of the Paris Symphony. The work was deliberately conceived to have the elegant style and the kind of brilliance which were all the rage in Paris at the time. The Allegro movements were, in fact, very well received at the first performance on 12 June 1778, but the gentle Andante (originally Andantino) was not appreciated. In order to show how eager he was to please, Mozart composed another Andante for a performance of the same work two months later. He could not have done more.

© Stefan de Haan