Not your usual Debussy/Ravel program by any means. The Dutilleux work, completed in l985, is just as unique and path-breaking as the Debussy and Ravel pieces that bookend it. Dutilleux went his own way in developing a style unrelated to serialism, Messiaen, or anything else in French music. Instead of the usual violin concerto structure, we have a sort of suite of four short movements with even shorter little Interludes between. The work grows continuously from a single source. While not terribly tonal, audiophiles will like the “ringing” quality of the sound in the work – due to the use of chimes, cymbals, vibes, celesta, harp and even cimbalom. The RCO has had a close relationship with Dutilleux since they premiered one of his early works in 1946, and that is how “Tree of Dreams” is on this program.
I had only one other SACD La Mer for comparison: Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony in the Living Stereo 3-channel series with Respighi’s Pines and Fountains of Rome. Though that’s a fabulous orchestra and Golden Age sonics, it sounds almost like a chamber orchestra compared to the smooth, wide and rich sound of the RCO. I even thought of a sort of animated version of the live-action piece. Debussy’s patches of impressionistic sound are presented with a clarity and detail that I have never heard before. La mer sounds like the completely original musical language it was. Never before has the close connection between impressionism in music and impressionism in art been so clear to me.
For Ravel’s familiar La valse I had two other SACDs – another Living Stereo, this time with Munch and the Boston Symphony – and Pierre Boulez conducting the NY Philharmonic on a Sony Classical multichannel disc. The RCA was only two-channel and again sound rather small and artificial next to the rich RCO sonics. The Boulez version has the detail and drama, with a wide dynamic range, but sounded rather calculated and technical next to the compelling flow of Jansons’ version. With the five channels of audio bringing the listener into the Concertgebouw itself, and the superb interpretation of this dramatic apotheosis of the waltz, one almost gets a synesthesiastic image of the dancers and the fog.
– John Sunier
