le Sage, Eric - Concert De Chausson - Quintette De Vierne CD
Upon its premiere in Brussels in 1892, Ernest Chausson’s Concert opus 21 was met with resounding acclaim in chamber music circles. Critic Pierre Lalo called the singular opus “one of the most considerable and interesting works written for music in recent years.” And with good reason: the score’s instrumentation was unconventional. The violin and the piano, conceived of as solo instruments, are accompanied by a string quartet. Along with other composers at the time, Chausson wished to move beyond German Romanticism, attempting in particular to free himself of Wagner’s paralysing influence. So he turned toward a more classical expression, taking after composers such as Couperin and Rameau. Rather than labelling his opus 21 as a sextet, he favoured the term “concert”. Thus named, the piece was in keeping with Baroque influences: the formation was reminiscent of the antique concerto grosso for several soloists, whereas the term “concert” finds a number of occurrences in 17th century works. What’s more, he reintegrated French terms into each of its four movements (décidé, animé, calme, un peu retenu), unfurling a masterpiece of uninterrupted lyricism through each of them, in a composition written especially for violinist Eugene Ysaÿe to whom the piece is dedicated. The slow introduction in the first movement hinges on three notes (D, A and E), out of which the entire piece unfolds. When the string quartet plays them back in harmony they form the melodic core of the violin’s lyrical outbursts, before returning to the piano part that introduced them in the first bars. This motivic work departs from classical developments of the sonata form to the benefit of a cyclical treatment—an approach inherited from Belgian master César Franck. Like a breath of country air, the second movement’s “Sicilienne” ushers in contrast with its light, graceful pace. Through this resurgence of an Italianate subject matter, including references to the Fêtes galantes and The Embarkation for Cythera, Chausson indulges in the collective artistic nostalgia for an imaginary century. The Grave remains one of the most poignant musical moments by the composer. Through it, the solo instruments weave a sinuous bond: the violin’s plaintive passions, trapped amidst an accompaniment with haunting chromaticism, are only set free with the finale. In this last movement, we return to the whirlwind spirit of the “Sicilienne” and a reprise of the preceding themes. Here, the composer’s genius effects a perfect blend of the cyclical principle extended to the long form in several movements, with the refined harmonic textures of Faurés middle period. Ernest Chausson died in 1899, thwarted in the thick of creativity by a bicycle accident. Were we to speak of his oeuvre at large, we might retain what his peer Paul Dukas said of it in 1903: “Ernest’s Chausson gradual conquest over his personality [...] gave to his art the definitive originality of a harmonious balance between the serene expression of his own peaceful life and the painful accents roused in him by the spectacle of a world he wished were more happy and magnificent.”
Louis Vierne - Piano Quintet, opus 42 The path opened by Chausson’s Concert op. 21 was not without successors. Less original yet just as resounding, in turn Louis Vierne’s Quintet op. 42 shuffled the stakes of the chamber music genre. Devoting a large part to the piano, its writing emerges from the wake between organ and orchestral music. It has to be said that Louis Vierne’s career as an organist was prestigious. First noticed by César Franck, who became his professor of harmony, Vierne was admitted into Charles-Marie Widor’s organ class at the Conservatoire de Paris. He quickly became his assistant and substitute at the Church of Saint-Sulpice’s choir loft, before being offered the position at Notre-Dame. As a composer, he tried his hand at the post-Wagnerian language of his time; one of dense counterpoint, omnipresent chromatic harmonies and an exalted character. Known especially for his liturgical music and his symphonies, this quintet is nonetheless one of his masterpieces. The heady and wilful quality of this opus mirrors a life of suffering: born blind, Louis Vierne was operated on at age 6. The intervention restored part of his eyesight, allowing him to begin an education at Institut des jeunes aveugles (Institute for Blind Youth) in Paris, where he began his musical tuition. During World War I, his son Jacques enlisted and died on the front in November 1917. The emotional intensity and distress of this loss mark the composition of this tormented quintet: “I am building a votive offering, a Quintet of vast proportions, that will channel the inspiration born of my tenderness and my child’s tragic fate. I shall see this work through with an energy that is as fierce and tremendous as my grief is terrible, and I shall make something that is powerful, imposing and strong, which will stir in the depths of every father’s breast the deepest fibres of love for a dead son... I, the last of my name, will bury with a thunderous roar and not with the plaintive bleating of a resigned and dumbstruck sheep.” This quintet was not to be the composer’s only musical homage: for his brother René who was decapitated by a shell, Vierne wrote the poem for piano Solitude. This work in three movements which premiered in Geneva in April 1920 bears witness to an age of darkness and distress. It is undoubtedly from this context that it draws its modernity: its sound and instrumental writing use Romanticism as a steppingstone, propelling the immersion into a 20th century marked by fractures. Suffering a stroke, Verne died at his instrument’s console during a recital at Notre-Dame in 1937.