Charles Koechlin - Magicien Orchestrateur (Heinz Holliger)

Information

• Claude Debussy - Khamma (arr. C. Koechlin)
• Charles Koechlin - Sur les flots lointains, Op. 130
• Gabriel Fauré - Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80 (arr. C. Koechlin)
• Franz Schubert - Fantasy in C major, Op. 15, D. 760, "Wandererfantasie" (arr. C. Koechlin)
• Emmanuel Chabrier - Bourrée fantasque (arr. C. Koechlin)

Sarah Wegener, soprano

Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra

Heinz Holliger, conductor

Date: 2012

Label: Hänssler Classic

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Review

Hänssler’s Koechlin series alights on his orchestrations

This is the 12th volume in Hänssler Classic’s estimable series devoted to Charles Koechlin, the sixth involving Holliger as conductor. His empathy with the Frenchman’s visionary art is manifest in the earlier releases but here only five of the disc’s 77 minutes’ playing time contain music by Koechlin himself. Here the focus is on the master orchestrator of music by other hands, most famously perhaps Debussy’s ill-starred ‘légende dansée’ Khamma (1911-12, orch 1912-13). Ironically, the one original piece of his given here, Sur les flots lointains (1933) is based on a piece by a pupil of his!

The reasons for Koechlin’s work as orchestrator are many and various. In the case of Khamma, Koechlin completed the orchestration which Debussy had abandoned after 10 pages (see Robert Orledge’s Debussy and the Theatre – Cambridge: 1982 – for details). With Pélleas et Mélisande, Fauré involved his brilliant student to save himself the irksome task, although he later reorchestrated part of the concert suite given here. The reworking of Chabrier’s Bourrée fantasque was commissioned to provide a more Gallic-sounding version, while that of the Wanderer Fantasy was designed for a Balanchine ballet.

The performances by the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra are beautifully poised and refined, with an audible relish for Koechlin’s instrumental magic. While Pélleas is fairly well known, Khamma and the Wanderer Fantasy are a revelation in these accounts for which Holliger takes much credit for shaping. Hänssler’s sound is splendid. Recommended.

-- Gramophone

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Charles Koechlin (27 November 1867 – 31 December 1950) was a French composer, teacher and musicologist. Among his teachers at the Paris Conservatoire were Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel and Jean Roger-Ducasse. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars (especially Lilian Harvey and Ginger Rogers), traveling, stereoscopic photography and socialism. As a composer, Koechlin was enormously prolific, and was highly eclectic in inspiration and technique.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Koechlin

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Heinz Holliger (born 21 May 1939) is a Swiss virtuoso oboist, composer and conductor. He was born in Langenthal, Switzerland and studied at the conservatory of Bern. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez. Celebrated for his versatility and technique, Holliger is among the most prominent oboists of his generation. His repertoire includes Baroque and Classical pieces, but he has regularly engaged in lesser known pieces of Romantic music, as well as his own compositions. As a composer, Holliger has written many works in a variety of media. Many of his works have been recorded for the ECM label.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Holliger

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