Gabriel Pierné - Cydalise et le chèvre-pied (David Shallon)

Information

Composer: Gabriel Pierné

• Cydalise et le chèvre-pied, ballet

Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg

David Shallon, conductor

Date: 2000/2009

Label: Timpani

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Review

In 1922 lovers of traditional French ballet had weathered a particularly protracted season of the Ballets Russes at the Opera, including the premieres of Renard and Mavra. So Pierne’s resurrection of things French the following year was greeted in more conservative quarters with sighs of relief as being ‘simply served with a pinch of Gallic salt and white wine’.

Pierne’s score, though, is a good deal more than a blatant nostalgia trip. True, there is the occasional echo of Daphnis and perhaps, faced with the word stupeur in the scenario, Pierne reaches rather too readily for the whole-tone chord. But he handles the orchestra with all the deftness and resource of the experienced conductor he was.

The story, setting the natural world of nymphs and satyrs against the ‘unnatural’ one of court life, gives him plenty of scope for atmospheric strings and pastoral woodwind on the one hand, and pseudo 18th-century pomposity on the other. At first hearing, I thought his tunes were rather unmemorable; but, second time round, they began to take on greater character, and the end of Act 2 is unmistakably stirring.

The disc stands, alas, as a last tribute to the talent of David Shallon, who died last September shortly after making this recording. On this showing, his death is a great loss. Throughout, phrases are beautifully shaped, textures carefully balanced, and I’m sure he did all that was possible with the patently non-professional choir who, happily, only have to go ‘aah’ every now and then.

Altogether a recommendable disc, which I shall certainly play a third time and beyond

-- Gramophone

More reviews:

https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Mar02/pierne.htm

https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2002/Aug02/Pierne-Cydalise.htm

https://www.amazon.com/Piern%C3%A9-Cydalise-ch%C3%A8vre-pied-Gabriel/dp/B002EYBOCI

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Gabriel Pierné (16 August 1863 – 17 July 1937) was a French composer, conductor, pianist and organist. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire; his teachers included Antoine François Marmontel, Albert Lavignac, Émile Durand, César Franck and Jules Massenet. He succeeded Franck as organist at Sainte-Clotilde Basilica in Paris from 1890 to 1898. Pierné wrote several operas, choral and symphonic pieces as well as a good deal of chamber music. He also made a few electrical recordings for Odeon Records, from 1928 to 1934. Pierné was also known for his discovery and promotion of the work of Ernest Fanelli.

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

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David Shallon (15 October 1950 in Tel Aviv, Israel – 15 or 16 September 2000 in Tokyo, Japan) was an Israeli conductor. At the Tel Aviv Music Academy, he studied conducting with Noam Sheriff and continued his studies in Vienna with Hans Swarowsky. Shallon has conducted performances at various opera houses in Vienna, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf and Amsterdam. From 1987 to 1993 he was General Music Director of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, and was the principal conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra from 1992 to 2000, and finally the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra from 1997 until his death.

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

https://www.davidshallon.com/

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