Ernest Bloch - Poèmes d'automne; Psaumes; Hiver-Printemps (David Shallon)

Information

Composer: Ernest Bloch

• Hiver-Printemps, symphonic poems
• Poèmes d'automne, for mezzo-soprano & orchestra
• In the Night, for orchestra
• Deux Psaumes, for soprano & orchestra
• Psaume 22, for baritone & orchestra

Mireille Delunsch, soprano

Brigitte Balleys, mezzo-soprano

Vincent Le Texier, baritone

Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg

David Shallon, conductor

Date: 1999

Label: Timpani

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Review

Bloch remains trapped in a celebrity largely locked into Schelomo. He is known also because his violin concerto was famously recorded by Menuhin. Both works bask in reflected light and one is left with the impression that Bloch's hold on the repertoire is fragile. What of the music beyond the confines of these two pieces?

There are five string quartets 1916, 1945, 1951-2, 1953, 1956 (three of which are on Arabesque - will they ever complete the cycle?), two piano quintets, 1921-2, 1957 (also on Arabesque) and four symphonies (C sharp minor, 1901-2, Israel, 1912-16, Sinfonia Breve, 1952, Symphony for trombone and orchestra, 1954-55). Sedulous record collectors may also have encountered Avodath Hakodesh or Sacred Service (Bernstein, Bloch and another version on Chandos - conducted by Berkman?), Concerto Symphonique (piano and orchestra, Vanguard), Helvetia and America-Epic Rhapsody (both Vanguard). There are also two very fine BIS CDs of the orchestral music - collections built around the symphony and the violin concerto.

A notable absentee from the catalogue is Bloch's opera - 'Lyric Drama' in seven scenes - Macbeth. It is an earlyish work (1907) but highly esteemed by the few who know the piece. I heard it (but regrettably did not keep the tape) when it was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in the late 1970s. That performance was sourced from French Radio and was conducted by Pierre Colomb with Julien Has (bar) as Macbeth and Genevieve Moizan (sop) as Lady Macbeth. The work is to a text by Edmond Fleg (who also provided the libretto for that other enigmatic outsider of twentieth century opera: Enescu's Oedip). Indeed Oedip, King Roger (Szymanowski) and Macbeth can be counted in similar company. Of the three only Macbeth awaits a first recording.

The present disc is of substantial value as it makes easily accessible a collection of early Bloch works.

Hiver-Printemps: The Debussian snowy climax of Hiver rises from tentative strands and threads of reflective and uncertain mien. It is like a chilled Tchaikovskian snow scene with the susurration of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead and the mystery of The Firebird's lowest registers. The musette-style naiveté of Printemps can be grouped with The Song Of My Heart from Frank Bridge's orchestral Jefferies Poems of 1915.

Poèmes D'Automne can be thought of as a Ravelian song-cycle profuse compounded with the profuse 'undergrowth' of Havergal Brian's Wine of Summer symphony. It is often dark and has those semitic 'wails' typifying Schelomo. The third of the four songs is a calm march-exequy for beauty's twilight. The cycle ends with florid Invocation which has a grand swinging stride recalling the final moments of Ma Mere l'Oye.

In the Night is the one late work in the company of so many early ones. It is an orchestration of a piece, originally for violin and piano, and in it Bloch explores the sombre touching on the darker sea-space passages in Debussy's La Mer.

To bring the disc to a close there are three psalm settings. The Two Psalms (114 and 137) are in three movements: a prelude and two settings for soprano. The Prelude's confident truculence melts in the face romantic mists closer to early Schoenberg. The settings sung by Brigitte Balleys with visceral engagement, operatic spirit and petulant vehemence are amongst his 'Jewish' works - fiercely devotional and in the case of Psalm 137 ravishingly rhapsodic. Psaume 22 has the trademark brassy flourish conjuring the exotic barbarity of Solomon's court as well as religious devotion set off by the discomfiting edge of danger. Le Texier tends towards vibrato under strain but this is a small price to pay for yet more 'operatic' Bloch. Le Texier successfully suggests the metier of Au Fond Du Temple Saint.

Texts and translations are there plus fine notes by Harry Halbreich.

An extremely fine production.

— Rob Barnett

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Ernest Bloch (July 24, 1880 – July 15, 1959) was a Swiss-born American composer known for blending post-Romantic and neoclassical styles with Jewish musical themes. He studied in Switzerland and Belgium, taught at the Geneva Conservatory, and moved to the U.S. in 1916. Bloch became the first director of the Cleveland Institute of Music and later led the San Francisco Conservatory. He taught at UC Berkeley until retiring in 1952. Bloch's compositions, influenced by Debussy, Mahler, and Ravel, include Schelomo, Baal Shem, Avodath Hakodesh, Concerto Grosso No. 1, and Israel Symphony, among others.

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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.

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