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HomeClassical MusicLEBRECHT LISTENS | Barraine Stays A Composer With out A Distinctive Voice...

LEBRECHT LISTENS | Barraine Stays A Composer With out A Distinctive Voice In New Recording


Composer Elsa Barraine, L: in 1940 on the piano (Photographer unknown, public area); R: in 1928 after successful the 2nd Prix de Rome on the age of 18 (Photographer unknown, public area)

Elsa Barraine: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2; Illustration symphonique pour Pogromes d’Andre Spire; La Mise au tombeau du Titien (CPO)

★★★☆☆

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The second symphony by this unsung French composer has been included on this summer season’s BBC Proms, and I wished to get accustomed to it earlier than deciding whether or not to go.

Barraine (1910-1999) had an eventful life. Daughter of the principal cello of the Paris Opéra, she attended the identical Conservatoire class as Olivier Messiaen, and gained the celebrated Prix de Rome.

Her first symphony is dated 1931, the second 1938. She joined the Communist Celebration within the late Thirties and the Résistance throughout the German Occupation. Put up-Conflict she taught on the Conservatoire, was an inspector on the Ministry of Tradition and wrote music in reward of Vietnam and Could Day.

Intrigued? Moi, aussi.

The second symphony lasts 17 minutes, in three actions. It makes assured statements for massed brass, has whimsical moments for oboe, and doesn’t dally too lengthy over anybody theme. The language is extra Mahler than Messiaen, with tummy rumblings of Wagner and Magnard. Attempt as I would, I couldn’t discover a voice that declares itself to be Barraine. Solely the finale, with a ‘je m’en fou’ type of defiance, means that the composer is a Parisian of fun-loving propensities, presumably a hat-tip to her instructor Paul Dukas.

The primary symphony, eight minutes longer, is undercooked. The piece I actually preferred on this document is a 1953 funereal reflection on Titian’s tomb, opening with the Dies irae on solo piano and creating in sudden instructions. The WDR Symphony Orchestra performs solidly beneath Elena Schwarz’s path. You might have surprise why one of many well-funded French orchestras didn’t do this first.

I’d like to listen to extra of Elsa Barraine’s later work, however to explain her, as this album does, as ‘probably the most important composers of the twentieth century’ is absurd. Barraine was, and stays, a composer in quest of a voice.

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