"Sturm und Drang" = NICOLAS BACRI: Concerto Amoroso ‘Le Printemps;’ Concerto for Flute and Orchestra; Concerto Nostalgico ‘L’Automne;’ Nocturne. Symphony No. 4 – Lisa Batiashvili, violin/ Riita Pesola, cello/Francois Leleux, oboe/ Sharon Bezaly, flute/ Tapiola Sinfonietta/Jean-Jacques Kantorow – BIS-CD 1579. [Distr. by Qualiton] ****:
Nicolas Bacri (b. 1961) once inscribed a phrase from Tristan Tarza on one of his scores: ‘I know that I carry melody within me and I am not afraid of it.’ As CD annotator Martin Anderson notes, growing up in France in the 1980s, with the domination of Boulez and the contemporary music establishment, it took a lot of courage to compose large compositions that were written in a tonal musical language. But compose he did – 6 symphonies, 8 string quartets and 27 concertos. Bacri studied with Giacinto Scelsi and in the late eighties was head of chamber music for Radio France. Since then he has been a full time composer. The works on this disc were all written in the last decade and represent his preference for the concerto.
Concerto amoroso (‘Le Printemps’) for oboe, violin and string orchestra is notable for the middle movement’s gorgeous aria that’s transformed and passed between violin and oboe. The outer movements are brighter and faster. Lisa Batiashvili and Francois Leleux perform beautifully. Bacri floats the flute over an orchestra of many colored moods in his Flute Concerto of 1999. A mood of sinister reverie pervades the middle movement. A peripatetic third movement complete this constantly changing work. Flutist Sharon Bezaly is her usual excellent self.
The Concerto Nostalgico (‘L’Automne’) of 2003 for oboe, cello and string orchestra is another short study in mood variation, but the tone here is darker, with the cello parrying with the oboe to find shards of light that pierce the clouds. The Nocturne for cello and string orchestra of 2004 migrates from a somber adagio to a manic Intenso and back again. The Fourth Symphony (‘Sturm und Drang‘) of 1995 was written in the style of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, containing musical homages to Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Kurt Weill. It’s a clever and delightful musical satire.
All of the music on this disc is tonal, accessible and ably performed by the soloists and the marvellous Tapiola Sinfonietta. The usual close, clear and reverberant sound maintains the high reputation that BIS has established. This CD is an answer to those who still believe that music written within the last ten years is unlistenable. On the other hand, those looking for new musical challenges won’t find many here.
— Robert Moon
