Unlike the other discs of Jacqueline
Fontyn's music that I reviewed recently (see
review), this one presents brand-new
recordings of works hitherto unrecorded. However, like the other
discs, the works featured here also span some twenty-five years of
Fontyn's prolific composing career. The earliest was composed as
far back as 1977 and the most recent in 2002. This provides for a
fair appreciation of her stylistic and musical progress over the
years while also emphasising the consistency of her
music-making.
The substantial
Quatre
Sites of 1977 might well be seen as Fontyn's symphony in all but name.
Although she has attached a subliminal programme to it, the music is neither
programmatic nor descriptive. It may however suggest places and moods of the
area of Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve for whose centenary the work was
commissioned and where the composer lives. The first movement
Molto lento
opens mysteriously and later unfolds as a Pastorale although the music is not
without sharper edges. The second movement is a vivacious Scherzo suggesting
buzzing university life in Louvain-la-Neuve. In total contrast, the third
movement
Eterico does not adhere to any particular form, but rather
confronts fragments tossed to and fro. The final movement is a sort of grand
recapitulation of parts of what has been heard before.
Quatre Sites was
awarded the Arthur Honegger International Music Prize by the Fondation de
France in 1987.
Quatre Sites is one of Fontyn's
most substantial achievements yet has been all-too-rarely heard.
It is to be hoped that this superb recording will help triggering
new performances.
On a landscape by
Turner does not refer to any specific
canvas by Turner, but the music nevertheless suggests the sort of evanescent
colours Turner deploys in canvases such as
Rain, steam and speed. It opens with
tubular bells over shimmering motifs suggesting some ambiguity.
The opening section leads into a somewhat more static episode in
which melodic fragments attempt to break through the mist. They
eventually do so, reaching a climax followed by a delicately
scored section in which vibraphone, harp and celesta are
prominent. Varied restatements of earlier motifs in turn lead to
the work's second climax. The appeased coda then concludes with
the sound of tubular bells.
L'anneau de jade opens with harp
and piano evoking the sound of gong-strokes heard in the Temple of
the Sky in Beijing. A long melodic line slowly begins to unfold,
homophonic at first but rather intricately contrapuntal in later
stages. Other instruments join in with their own music, and
textures become more dense. The work ends with a peaceful
restatement of the opening.
The most recent
work here
Au fil des siècles was commissioned to celebrate the 500
th anniversary
of the Orchester des Staatstheaters Kassel. Again, the music mostly juxtaposes
strongly
contrasting episodes leading to an assertive rendering of a motet
by Johannes Heugel. The motet was composed around 1570 for what
was then known as the Landgräfliche Hofkapelle Kassel. This is
eventually combined with some of the earlier material making for
a
somewhat surreal, almost Ivesian coda.
These
often beautiful works give ample proof of Jacqueline Fontyn's
highly personal sound-world and poetic vision, both of which she
has painstakingly refined over the years. Here is a composer who
has things to say and who knows how to say them.
These
superb performances recorded in the composer's presence have an
unquestionable ring of authenticity. David Porcelijn conducts
vital and well prepared readings and the Janácek Philharmonic
obviously relishes scores that must have been new territory to
them. The recorded sound is excellent even when heard on a
standard stereo set-up.
In
short, this is a splendid release on all counts and one that does
full justice to Fontyn's often complex but ultimately rewarding
music.
Hubert Culot
Janácek Philharmonic
Orchestra/David Porcelijn
