Search - Honegger, Georges Tzipine, Maurice Durufle :: Les Rarissimes de Arthur Honegger (Christmas Cantata, Nicolas de Flue, Les Cris du Monde)

An appeal mainly to collectors - and even then: only those w

Discophage | France | 06/03/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"One can only lament that EMI France has not systematically maintained in the catalog some of the sets they had published in the 1990s in the collection "Les Introuvables", for which some internet sellers are now asking ludicrous prices. But still, praise them for pursuing their reissue effort in this new collection "Les Rarissimes" and making available again some of the finest collectibles from the late 78rpms and early LP era, from their own archive or the vaults of the French label Ducretet-Thompson.



Unfortunately, this Honegger reissue turns out to be somewhat disappointing. It collates three vocal/choral works, including two rarities in Honegger's output, and two of the composer's most famous symphonic poems (Pacific 231, Rugby), all recorded between 1953 and 1957 by Georges Tzipine (one of the composer's staunchest advocates back then). Except for the Christmas Cantata (originally paired with the Third Symphony) and the two symphonic poems, regularly reissued in budget series, those early recordings had become rarities even in the LP era: "rarissimes" indeed - e.g. very rare -, as no old records are really "introuvables" (impossible to find) , if you put your mind, time and money to it.



The two symphonic poems originally came on the fourth side of a French Columbia set (there were licencing agreements back then, the intricacies of which I am not very familiar with, by which EMI-France published under that label) featuring "Nicolas de Flue" (1940), a great patriotic oratorio ("Dramatic Legend", Honegger calls it) in the vein of King David. The text is by Denis de Rougemont (1906-1985, a Swiss writer and philosopher, quite famous in those days, established in France since 1930 and the author of the seminal L'Amour en Occident / Love in the Western World, 1939), and takes it subject from an episode in the history of Switzerland: Nicolas de Flue (1417-1487) was a hermit who had a pacifying influence when some political tensions threatened the unity of the Swiss Confederation - clearly a feat of veritably universal impact, which led to his canonization in 1947; he should have been awarded a posthumous nobel prize for peace, really. Musically, it is Honegger at his most didactic, nationalistic and preachifying.



The Christmas Cantata is one of Honegger's last works. In it, especially at the beginning, very somber and dramatic, you can hear fine musical echoes of "Joan at the Stake", but also, because of the Christmas occasion, lots of affectedly naïve music, children' choir direct from Sunday school and a lachrymose baritone to boot. Fauré did much better in his Requiem. But it is, I guess, somewhat better than the average hymns and songs you get at Christmas.



The most interesting piece from the lot is the oratorio "Les Cris du Monde" (Worldly Shouts). Composed in 1931 and lasting 54 minutes, it deals with The Human Being (capital letters required, please; this is supposed to be deep and substantial; the text designates it as "The Voice", alternately sung by soprano and baritone) in search of a goal and a hope in the midst of the shouts and fury of the modern world: factories, crowds, armies. Once again it is pretty demonstrative, but musically often powerful, couched in an angular musical language reminiscent of "La Danse des Morts". Of particular note is the composer's very idiosyncratic and efficient approach to French prosody, with rhythmic writing always accenting the words' first syllable, and his use of a quasi-parlando for the chorus, very typical also of Milhaud in his early works (Les Choéphores, for instance).



Despite the remastering for CD the sonics show their age and sound distant (it isn't the first time I encounter reissues of material from the early 1950s from EMI-France in which no particular care has been given to sonic refurbishment), and while the solo voices do have presence (especially the reciter Jean Davy in Nicolas de Flue), the chorus is as good as incomprehensible. This is especially penalizing, since the liner notes, by the noted French scholar Jean-Charles Hoffélé, while providing valuable and fascinating info on the circumstances and financial hurdles of the original recordings, are extremely succinct on the individual works, giving no synopsis, let alone the text. I challenge anybody who doesn't have the text to know what "Les Cris du Monde" is about. Furthermore, while "Nicolas de Flue" is appropriately cued, the Christmas Cantata and "Cris du Monde" get only their beginning cue, which shows an irksomely slapdash attitude from EMI-France.



Nicolas de Flue and the two symphonic poems were originally released as LPs in a superb box containing the complete libretto (but without any presentation of the compositions), while "Cris du Monde" came with a magnificent libretto, printed on vellum paper, with reproductions, on the cover of a cubist painting by Marcoussis, and on the inside cover of a wood etching of Honegger by Marcel Arthaud. There was also the complete text and a long musical analysis by Bernard Gavoty, a famous French organist and critic in those days. Needless to say, for those lucky enough to own these two magnificent collector items, and given the very limited sonic improvement brought forth by these CD reissues, the acquisition of this Rarissime set isn't mandatory. It is recommended mainly to the other Honegger devotees wanting to complete their itinerary in the composer's discographic history - but are there many of these out there?



A last note: In reference to the financial difficulties that the original recordings had to overcome, the French notes are titled "une mission de service public" - a public service mission, the typically and idiosyncratically French notion that some activities are so important to the public they should not be subjected to the rules and constraints of market and profitability, but subsidized. This has been translated in English by "A service to the listening public", evidently losing all the gist of it. How can the French dream of imposing the "service public" to the rest of the world, when it can't even be correctly translated?

"