Nicolas BACRI
(b.1961-)
CD1:-
Toccata Sinfonica Piano Trio No. 1 (1991)
Cello Sonata (1992)
Suite No. 3 for solo cello Vita et Mors (1993)
Deux preludes Op. 24 (1988)
Trois preludes Op. 28 (1989)
Trois preludes Op. 46
(1995)
CD2:-
Piano Trio No. 2 Les Contrastes (1995)
Violin Sonata (1994)
Sonata breve for solo violin (1994)
Duo for violin and cello (1987-92)
Trois petites rapsodies for solo violin
(1986).
Florence Millet (piano); Katie
Lansdale (violin); Scott Kluksdahl (cello).
Rec Indre, France, 1995/96
world premiere recordings
TRITON TRI2001/2 [CD1
64.17; CD2 62.30]
Nicolas Bacri studied at the Conservatoire Nationale with Ballif,
Nigg, Constant and Philippot. He has won numerous prizes for his compositions
and has enjoyed commissions from Radio-France, the French Ministry of Culture
and many other artistic bodies. He is a composer who has attracted attention
world-wide (some of his choral works have been broadcast by the BBC). His
clarinet concerto was played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Martyn
Brabbins at the Royal Festival Hall in May 2000.
Piano trio No. 1 for example sport long melodic lines but this is
set in a world of anguish touched with the sort of Jewish themes I associate
with the music of Shostakovich and Babi Yar. This is music of a fever; music
of fear and pursuit. The booklet notes refer to melodic intensity and I would
certainly not disagree. This is music of commanding creativity. The Cello
Sonata, which is as long as the trio, is a hesitant work rising in Bach-like
discovery out of fragmentation towards unity, violent doggedness and protest
against injustice. The unity of the last five minutes is expressed in the
long elegiac lines of the cello against the plangent stride of the piano.
The cello as cantorial rhapsodic singer dominates the Third Suite.
Did I detect a Hungarian accent in this music? Surely Britten's own three
solo cello suites are also a reference point here although the emotional
material is richer in the case of Bacri. The Suite is the most accessible
of the works. In it Bacri finds the song within. In the Preludes (opp
24, 28) we are back to refraction and extrusion: music of dark hints, of
disquiet and of rumour. But in Op. 46 the mists clear and a more lyrical
approach asserts itself paralleling the solo cello suite.
The Second Trio, Les Contrastes , is well named
- the mood contrasts are strong. Unity is to be found in the language of
tenderly strained tonality. I thought of Benjamin Frankel's Elégie
Juive as well as the Shostakovich piano trio. The music seems to evolve
out of a sense of torment and the macabre. But in the fifth of the five movements
respite and peace are most movingly captured. The Violin Sonata is
of a similar caste but in it there is evidence that Bacri has found and can
convey an almost-Delian cradling contentment among the dazzling sparks and
furious gadflies. It is in eleven small panels which, when heard, give the
impression of continuity. The Sonata for solo violin is only 7 or
so minutes in length by comparison with the quarter hour scale of the Trio
and Sonata for violin and piano. Virtuosity is almost de rigueur in such
works in order to sustain interest and certainly there is technical challenge
here. However the piece feels unrounded and simply ends unresolved. Only
slightly longer and for the same solo instrument are the Trois petites
rapsodies - all drawing on expressionism touched with fantasy and
Bachian gestures. The Duo for violin and cello is by far the toughest
music on the disc and its profusion of yearning atonality is of a piece with
the other Bacri works of the mid and late 1980s. The creepily rocking middle
movement is followed by a furiously admonitory finale which fades into dreamy
restfulness.
The two discs are housed in an old style double-width box which would have
been necessitated anyway by a dumpy booklet in French, English and German.
The booklet is extremely well-structured and thorough. There is a list of
works, sequenced chronologically from 1980 to 1995.
Mildly adventurous souls will find much to attract and hold the attention
here and I for one have high hopes to hear M. Bacri's other works - especially
the symphonies and cello concerto.
Rob Barnett
The disc can be ordered via:
thiebault@disques-triton.com
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MORE ABOUT BACRI
http://www.radio-france.fr/chaines/france-musiques/biographies/fiche.php?numero=73
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IMPRESSIONS OF SOME BACRI WORKS DESERVING COMMERCIAL RECORDING
Folia (1990) - chaconne symphonique pour orchestra - in memoriam
B. Britten. An 8 minute waking from the ghostly atmosphere we encounter
in Britten's Grimes Passacaglia to a lament taking something from
Berg and more from Purcell. The fury of a Malcolm Arnold symphony is also
to be found here in full pursuit. This is a very different work from Arvo
Pärt's minimalist Cantus - a Britten memento mori.
The almost half hour Fifth Symphony - Concerto for Orchestra begins
in a fury of fanfares and the sort of mud-spraying high speed gallops that
characterise the Napoleonic 'parade' section of Prokofiev's War and
Peace. The third movement leads us again into the skittering territory
of the opening fanfares, Malcolm Arnold and even a touch of Sibelius which
returns in the rocking spectral dance that all but closes the fourth movement.
The scorching string paeans can surely only have been inspired by the masterful
example of William Schuman, one of the last century's great composers. The
tumultuous downward sweeping repeated waves in the finale are reminiscent
of similarly protesting figures in Allan Pettersson's Ninth Symphony.
The 11 minute Divertimento (2000) for violin, piano and orchestra
has learnt something from Schnittke in its headlong furiously boisterous
progress. Soaked deep in some cataclysm and its aftermath this is powerful
music confounding all expectations raised by the possibly ironic title
Divertimento. For me it summons up memories of the remarkable middle
movement of Panufnik's Sinfonia Elegiaca. It sounds more like the
first movement of a much more ambitious symphonic-concerto trekking through
a tragic mindscape. I am sure that there is a larger work here waiting to
emerge.
The 12 minute Sixth Symphony has been played by the Orchestre National
de France conducted by the BBC's Principal Conductor, Leonard Slatkin. The
violently buzzing zest of the Divertimento is presaged in this 1998
work and those slashing fanfares heard in the opening pages of the Fifth
Symphony are also here.
References to other composers are not to be taken as any slight on M. Bacri's
invention which is his own and valid in its own right. They are used here
in order to help the listener get his bearings - a form of auditory
triangulation.
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BACRI AND THE SYMPHONY
Bacri is not one of those composers who disclaim the symphony. On the contrary
he has six to his name:-
1. (1984) ded. Elliott Carter - the culmination of his Viennese School interests.
2. Sinfonia Dolorosa (same title as the Harald Saeverud work) (1986-90)
a half hour span 'in memoriam Allan Pettersson'.
3. Sinfonia da Requiem for mezzo, choir and orchestra (1988-94) dedicated
'to the glory of Abraham' and running 72 minutes and selecting texts from
Jewish, Christian and Muslim sources in the Spain of the 7th and
8th century.
There are three further symphonies beyond these. No. 5 (1996-7); No. 6 (1998).
We can hope that rather like some other fine contemporary symphonies we will
one day (soon?) get to hear them on CD. My shortlist would also include the
Mark Harrison Symphony, the massive Ben Dorain by Ronald Stevenson
and the St Kilda Symphony by Jerrold James Gordon.
