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Hommage à la France - The Geometry of Sound Milano
Teatro alla Scala
01/15/2024 -
Olivier Messiaen: Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum
Maurice Ravel: Une barque sur l’océan – Daphnis et Chloé (Suites Nos. 1 & 2)
Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Chailly (conductor)
R. Chailly (© Andrea Veroni)
For the opening concert of the Filarmonica della Scala, Riccardo Chailly chose an unusual program. One would have expected one of the great symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner or Mahler, and given the location, something related to Italy or to opera, such as an operatic overture. However, Chailly, a native of Milan, instead chose an all‑French programme.
French music is renowned for its elegance and rich orchestration, and the program confirmed these attributes. The first part was Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1965), a work dedicated to the victims of the first and second World Wars. Given the tragic events happening in Gaza, it was a most appropriate choice. Commissioned in 1963 by France’s legendary Minister of Culture, André Malraux, the idiosyncratic work invokes both piety and faith. Its five movements are titled after passages from the Bible. Entirely performed by wind instruments and percussion, this grandiose work can sound bombastic, but not in Chailly’s hands. He was able to subtly lend the work its massive reverberation while maintaining its sobriety, an essential feature of the work. The tempo used in the opening movement, “Des profondeurs de l’abîme, je crie vers toi, Seigneur: Seigneur, écoute ma voix,” was appropriately slow and plaintive. The final movement, “Et j’entendis la voix d’une foule immense...,” was impressively resonant. The tubulars bells, meant to be the sound of God, were vivid, almost terrifying.
Other than their Gallic heritage, the link between Messiaen and Ravel may not be obvious. Music is not only an expression of the mood of the composer or a descriptive reaction to a place or an event, but a geometry of sound. This originated in the School of Notre‑Dame in the twelfth century and the Ars Nova in the fourteenth century. Indeed, polyphony was born in France and French classical music has continued to maintain that geometric quality. This is the principal link between the two composers.
Ravel was a master orchestrator of several of his own works written for piano as well as for Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The second half of the concert began with Une barque sur l’océan, an excerpt from Ravel’s Miroirs for solo piano, a short work lasting a mere seven minutes. Despite its length, it offers a vast array of moods, conjuring a boat floating in the ocean, ranging from languorous to turbulent and to a final serenity. Chailly brilliantly interpreted this ambiguous kaleidoscope of colour.
Daphnis and Chloe is a story by Hellenistic poet Longus dating from the 2nd century AD about two foundlings brought up by shepherds, separated and abducted, reunited and finally falling in love. This bucolic plot inspired works such as Torquato Tasso’s Aminta (1573), Joseph‑Henri Bernardin de Saint‑Pierre’s Paul et Virginie (1788), as well as painter Marc Chagall (1961), and composers Jacques Bodin de Boismortier (1747), Jacques Offenbach (1860) and Ravel (1912).
Ravel’s “Symphonie chorégraphique” Daphnis et Chloé is his longest and possibly greatest orchestral work. Composed as a ballet for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, it was not a huge success at its premiere. Luckily, he extracted two suites from the score, corresponding to the second and third parts of the ballet. Chailly emphasized Ravel’s rich orchestral textures with spirited aplomb. In the “Nocturne,” the orchestra is hauntingly lush and erotic. The brass was impressive in the “Danse guerrière” and the orchestra’s frenzied quick tempi culminated in a riotous Dionysian finale. The atmospheric “Lever du jour” was sensual and eerie. Chailly wisely avoided easy bombast in the Bacchanale of the final movement, “Danse générale,” and yet the finale was enjoyably vigorous.
The public was ecstatic by the concert’s end, and greeted their much‑loved native son Chailly and his orchestra with enthusiastic, well‑deserved applause.
Ossama el Naggar
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