I
owe it to the dedicated enquiring mind of
Michael
Herman that I even knew of the existence of this composer
and of these symphonies. That I had the opportunity to
review them is due to the generosity of the
composer himself,
as the recordings are currently unavailable.
Born
in Paris, Chamouard studied with Roger Boutry and made
a reputation initially as a Mahler scholar. Performance
of his music have taken place since 1992. He deemed his
works before 1987 as unworthy and destroyed them. The unnumbered
symphony
Sphène is his first recognised piece. He
has drawn the praise of Maurice André and Ennio Morricone.
His music bridges the realms of humanism and spirituality – a
mystical inscape.
The
First
Symphony,
Tibetan, is in three movements:
Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow – each of which opens with
the invocatory sound of a Tibetan bell. The first has
the expressive quality of a temperate sigh. The music
has the nostalgic acidity of Bernard Herrmann’s most
romantic scores. Not for the first time do we hear echoes
of Panufnik in his most restrained and dignified mood.
The second recalls the fluttered wing-beat of the epilogue
of Bax’s Seventh Symphony (4:52). The finale breathes
the sweetest and faintest zephyr of breath - sanguine
and mysterious.
Sphène is Chamouard’s very first symphony. It is unnumbered. The slightest
twist of dissonance in the music of the First Symphony
is here slighter still. The music is poised redolent of
time held still – luminous and tender. Not a great deal
happens. While this is music of a contemplative order it
is not bland. It speaks of a softly sustained tension between
the world below the moon where all is perishable and the
realms of eternity above the moon. The final movement echoes
Mahler’s famous Adagietto. This mystic symphony is his
first acknowledged work; which he destroyed all his score
dating from before 1987. The work ends with the gleam of
high strings: intimations of immortality drifting into
niente.
For
the
Second Symphony we encounter a change
of mood and character. There is a more statuesque grim
urgency in evidence. The music has undulant contours and
no jaggedness. A grandly elegiac sense can be felt at the
end of the Largo. A suddenly sprung glow of light in this
movement is a memorable moment. The surreal drifting of
the mezzo solo holds melancholy and no anger. There is
a touch of Gorecki’s
Symphony of Sorrowful Songs here.
Halabja - marking the poisoned gas atrocities of Saddam Hussein - at first
articulates a sort of shivering urgent horror which saws
and grates. This represents a sort of Pendereckian tragedy
mixed with the horror of Lidice (Martinů) and Katyn
(Panufnik). It ends in a slow resigned march - drained
of hope amid paradoxically glistening high strings.
Veils
of Silence takes the
words of the Lebanese poet Kalil Ghibran speaking for
the Sphinx of Giza: a grain of sand is a desert – a
desert is a grain of sand – now let us return to silence.
This ‘silence’, in Chamouard’s hands, has the piercing
emotionalism of Barber’s
Adagio (try 6:32).
The
Third
Symphony has in its first movement a gentle susurration – inhabiting
the same world as Arvo Pärt’s
Cantus. The second
grumbles ominously then rises to an urgent feral stomping.
It closes in louring clouds. This precedes a final movement
which has the pensive mystery of bells. The extract from
L'Esprit
de la Nuit is dignified and taciturn.
Les
Figures de l'Invisible is a very succinctly expressed
piece for celtic harp and orchestra. The solo instrument
has none of the new age celticism we might expect. Its
voice is rather ascetic apart from in the flourishes
of the second movement. It otherwise recalls the koto
part in Cowell’s concerto for that instrument rather
than the decorative guitar like patterns in the
Persian
Set. The gong makes an atmospheric contribution in
the first movement. The penultimate one includes an unusual – for
Chamouard – stuttered fanfare. The finale ends in a dignified
shiver and glow of the strings. A sense of mystic dignity
is one of Chamouard’s strongest suits. In the second
movement of this work we also get an unaccustomed dash
of sentimentality even if it is hushed and introspective.
These
three discs address four of Chamouard’s nine symphonies.
I cannot wait to hear No.4 " The wanderer of the clouds" (2001)
38:00; No.5 "The manuscript of the stars" (2002)
40:00; No.6 "The mountain of the soul" (2005)
45:00; No.7 (2006-07) 45:00 and No. 8 (2008) 37:0 which
includes a part for Scottish bagpipes. I hope that they
will be recorded or broadcast soon
If
you have a taste for Gorecki, Pärt, Macmillan, Tavener
or Hovhaness then you should find much here to enjoy. It’s
certainly not hard work but then neither is it facile and
it certainly does not lack in individuality.
Rob Barnett
Olsztyn
State Philharmonic Orchestra/Piotr Borkowski
