2022年8月27日土曜日

Concerto For Organ, Strings, Timpani And Percussion / Concerto For Piano by Charles Chaynes; Marie-Claire Alain; Yvonne Loriod; Serge Baudo Musical Heritage Society (MHS 1088)

 Charles Chaynes was born in Toulouse in 1925 and studied

music at the Paris Conservatoire, where he was the pupil of

Darius Milhaud and Jean Rivier. In 1951, he obtained the Premier

Grand Prix de ‘Rome, and remained at the Villa Medicis from

1952 to 1955. There, he wrote symphonic works in which his

personality already asserted itself. In Rome, he composed his

First Concerto for String Orchestra, premiered at the Bordeaux

Festival in 1954, and the Ode for a tragic Death, first performed

at the Vichy Festival in 1956, a piece of which Robert Bernard

praises the “‘sober and virile eloquence” in his History of Music.


Charles Chaynes’ list of compositions includes Concertos for

Trumpet, for Violin, for Piano, for Organ, a Symphony a Second

Concerto for Orchestra, a Serenade for Wind Quintet, a Sonata

for Violin and Piano, "J/lustrations pour la Flute de Jade,” Etudes

linéaires for Chamber Orchestra, thus showing the composer's

partiality for instrumental music, though this is by no means

exclusive.


Charles Chaynes has defined his position for himself, by

writing: “Always a partisan of a wholly atonal music, I wish to

safeguard a total independence towards any school. The choice of

the musical material must result only from taste, from instinct

(of course, also from reflexion), but must not be conditioned by

a technique fixed a priori. It is only the self-knowledge acquired

by regular work that can fix a limit to that freedom. Above all,

it is important, always to retain a great artistic curiosity, to re-

main always open and available for any kind of enrichment of

the personality.” One could not say it in clearer terms. Let us

add, however, that this “atonal” musician has the faculty of en-

hancing, by dazzling colours and sturdy rhythms, a language of

which it was believed for a long time (and quite wrongly) that

it was only convenient for a morose and pessimistic expression.

Primacy of the emotional element, respect and curiosity towards

technique, rejection of pre-established schemes, independence

towards the different schools, the will to express himself in clear

terms, those are the leading lines which we find both in the Piano

Concerto and in the Concerto for Organ, string orchestra, kettle-

drums and percussion.


The CONCERTO FOR ORGAN, STRING ORCHESTRA,

KETTLEDRUMS AND PERCUSSION (after the Spiritual Can-

ticle of the Holy John of the Cross) was completed on 3rd

September, 1966. It has three movements: Slow, mysterious-

Allegro; Very slow, Very fast. The composer himself is introduc-

ing this work: “The writing of this Concerto has been conditioned

directly by the Firm ERATO. It is dedicated to Marie-Claire Alain,

for whom I have a lively friendship and a great admiration since

many years. The organ is an instrument that has fascinated me

since my childhood, for every Sunday I was at the organ loft next

to my mother, who was an organist in Toulouse. The instrument’s

great possibilities impressed me and tempted me since a long time.

Though I withdrew before the difficulty of writing a piece for

organ alone, I went to work with passion as soon as I was to

write a piece for organ and orchestra. It is the care for tone-

colour research that prompted me to choose the formula “string

orchestra and percussion,” the latter being often used in dialogue

with the solo organ. The work is an illustration in three parts of

poems taken from the Spiritual Canticle by the Holy John of the

Cross. The recollection of my reading of these poems during a

journey through Castile provoked the psychological shock which

incited me to base my Organ Concerto on the extra-musical frame

provided by the strange atmosphere of the poem of the Holy John

of the Cross. Each movement is the musical comment of a precise

poem. This comment tries to translate into music the thirst of

love, of peace, of exaltation, of beaming joy, of dramatic feeling,

that pervades these poems.”

Where werest Thou hidden, my Beloved one?

Thou hast forsaken me amid my lamentations:

Thou hast taken to flight like a stag,


After having wounded me;

I have gone out after Thee, screaming,

But Thou werest already gone.

(The Soul and her divine Spouse).

After a long expectation

He climbed on a tree, and with stretched arms

He remained nailed and died,

His heart cruelly stricken by Love.

(The forsaken Shepherd).

With flowers and emeralds,

Chosen in the early morning,

We shall make bunches,

Blossoming in Thy love,


And tied with one of my hairs.

Into this paraphrase of a mystical text Charles Chaynes has

put the better part of himself. The whole composition is subordi-

nate to the expressive element (at the end of the second move-

ment is to be found a musical translation of the beating of a heart,

in accordance ‘with the text by the Holy John of the Cross), but

this primacy of feeling does not implicate a contempt of technique,

on the contrary. Such a combination of tone-colours is dedicated

by the laws of absolute music: and it is “as a musician” that

Charles Chaynes has wanted it and realized it, but in doing so,

he followed the always unexplainable suggestion of the instant,

or, if one prefers, his inspiration.

First performed in 1966 by Yvonne Loriod, the PLANO CON-

CERTO only calls for a small orchestra: 2 flutes, trumpet, harp,

kettledrums, percussion and strings. It adopts the traditional

division into three movements, but within each movement, it

retains a very great freedom, devoid of any reference to classical

schemes: ‘The architecture only depends upon the logical corres-

pondence of the different elements and of the successive expressive

values.” In the first movement (Lento misterioso - Allegro), the

music “gradually emerges from a short introduction made of

wavering calls of the soloist over a pianissimo back-ground of the

orchestra.” This introduction leads, through a crescendo, to a

thythmic and vigorous Allegro, which gradually exalts itself. The

second movement (Adagio molto espressivo) is conceived like ‘‘a

succession of musical ideas, linked together in an order of growing

feelings: crescendo of intensity and of lyricism.” It ends in an

atmosphere of appeasement. The third movement (Allegro risoluto

con esaltazione) is overflowing with life, very colourful, and

grants a great part to the soloist’s virtuosity.

JEAN ROY


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