Information
Composer: Charles Koechlin
- The Seven Stars' Symphony, Op. 132
- Vers la voûte étoilée, Op. 129
Basel Symphony Orchestra
Ariane Matiakh, conductor
Date: 2022
Label: Capriccio
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Koechlin wrote his Seven Stars’ Symphony after belatedly seeing his first film, The Blue Angel, in 1933 at the age of 65. As well as featuring two movements inspired by the stars of the film, Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings, the work also includes musical depictions of Douglas Fairbanks, Lilian Harvey, Greta Garbo, Clara Bow and Charlie Chaplin. The choice of music for the portrayals frequently subverts expectations. The movement for Fairbanks, for example, eschews a depiction of the swashbuckling nature of many of the actor’s roles in favour of a sinuous and delicate piece inspired by the 1924 film The Thief of Bagdad, while the movement for Chaplin features a lengthy and sophisticated set of variations. Most distinctive of all is the movement for Garbo, which makes extensive use of an ondes martenot four years before Messiaen first used the instrument in Fête des belles eaux. Here, as elsewhere in the work, refinement and atmosphere take precedence over symphonic development and emotional impact.
Vers la voûte étoilée (‘Towards the vault of the stars’) also dates from 1933 and is dedicated to the French astronomer Camille Flammarion (astronomy being one of Koechlin’s many interests). Its predominantly stately and aspiring nature is softened by the appearance of a beguiling melody for solo horn around halfway through its 13-minute length.
Ariane Matiakh’s performance of the symphony is beautifully done and can be recommended alongside James Judd’s 1995 account for RCA. Her performance of Vers la voûte étoilée similarly holds its own alongside the fine recording by Heinz Holliger for Hänssler (which also features Koechlin’s rarely heard symphonic poem Le docteur Fabricius). In both cases, however, Capriccio’s engineering is slightly more sumptuous and easier on the ear without any loss of detail.
-- Christian Hoskins, 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.
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Ariane Matiakh (born 1980) is a French conductor. She obtained prizes in piano, chamber music, conducting at the Conservatory in Reims, and piano accompaniment at the Conservatory in Rueil-Malmaison. From 2002 to 2005, she studied conducting at the Musik Hochschule in Vienna, and followed the advice of Seiji Ozawa in masterclasses. In September 2018, the Staatskapelle Halle announced the appointment of Matiakh as its new Generalmusikdirektorin, the first female conductor ever named to the post. She is currently Principal Conductor of the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen.
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