Bernstein Conducts
      Music from 20th-Century France

* Milhaud: Les Choephores*
* Roussel: Symphony #3 in g minor
* Honegger:
        Rugby
        Pacific 231

* Vera Zorina (Choephore), Irene Jordan (Electra), McHenry Boatwright
(Orestes), Virginia Babikian (soprano), Schola Cantorum of New York
New York Philharmonic/Leonard Bernstein
Sony MHK62352 Total time: 73:53

Summary for the Busy Executive: Packs a punch.

Outside of the popular Debussy and Ravel, Bernstein wasn't much known
for his advocacy of French music. Clearly, however, he had an affinity
for it, as his performance of the Ravel G-major piano concerto and the
landmark complete recording of the Debussy Martyre de Saint Sebastien
show. To some extent, he caught "French fever" from his teachers, notably
Edward Burlingame Hill. More important, however, was the immense influence
of Stravinsky on him, both in his composing and in the formation of his
musical taste.

Stravinsky dominated Modern European and American music between the wars.
Hindemith, Bartok, and Schoenberg don't even come close. He lurks behind
every composer on this disc like a musical John Beresford Tipton, with
the single exception that he wasn't exactly anonymous. In essence,
Stravinsky called the tune of Western European music twice: with Le Sacre
du printemps and again with the neoclassical works of the late Teens and
Twenties, especially L'Histoire du soldat, the Octet, Les Noces, and
Oedipus Rex. The fact that he lived in France well into the Thirties
increased his influence over French musical life.

Because of works like La Creation du monde, Saudades do Brazil and Suite
provencale, many tend to think of Milhaud as exclusively a purveyor of
superior light music, but you have only to read Copland's essays on the
composer to realize first how serious he could be and second that you
probably haven't heard any of the pieces Copland talks about. Bernstein
served the composer very well indeed by picking Les Choephores (1915-17)
in the first place. The text, by Milhaud's favorite poet, Paul Claudel,
shows the French fascination with and need to recreate classical Greece,
in this case the Aeschylus tragedy. Milhaud's music takes the barbarism
and painfully bright colors of Le Sacre to evoke a stark, primitive,
violent world. This score lies at the antipodes of the "clubbable"
Milhaud. It howls with anguish. One feature of interest is a rhythmic
chanting to a percussion accompaniment. Milhaud, one of the few French
composers with a highly-developed creative rhythmic sense, avoids having
his libation bearers sound like high-school cheerleaders. Vera Zorina,
Columbia's resident recitant (and wife of the head of the classical
division), does her usual superior job. She's one of the few "speakers"
(Madeline Milhaud, the composer's wife, was another) who not only managed
to keep a composer's rhythm - she was a star of the Ballets Russes - but
also performed credibly in the French classical dramatic style. Bernstein
not only gives us the physicality of the score, but its gravitas as well.

If Milhaud's viable output has shrunk to his "happy" scores, Roussel -
at least outside of France - has never really held much listener interest.
He began as an Impressionist, turning out decent and well-made, but not
particularly distinctive imitations of Debussy and Ravel. However, his
mind refused to sit still. The early stuff is simply a beginning. He
began searching for a music he could call his own. Again, Stravinsky's
was the music that liberated him, as one can easily hear in the stamping
opening movement to the Symphony No. 3 (1930), one of Koussevitzky's
legendary commissions for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony
(Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms was another). But one hears something
more as well - a sense of measure, a classical balance of form, and a
rhythmic and orchestral approach highly influential on many French and
French-resident composers of the time. You've only to listen to the
scherzo and the finale, for example, to discover where Martinu, who
went to Roussel for composition advice, got at least some of his sound.
Poulenc, a composer untouched by Roussel, nevertheless said of this
symphony, "It is really marvelous to combine so much springtime and
maturity." From its animal high spirits to a cool, tender lyricism, it's
hard to disagree. This is indeed a marvelous work.

The two Honegger tone poems (the original LP included a third, the
warm-hearted, slightly bluesy Pastorale d'Ete) come from the Twenties.
Rather than call them tone poems, however, Honegger designated Pacific
231 (1924) and Rugby (1928) "mouvement symphonique" numbers 1 and 2,
respectively. The composer chafed under programmatic restraints and felt
more comfortable with formal design, a sign of the symphonist to come.
Indeed, he described Pacific 231 not as a locomotive puffing through the
countryside but as a musical structure that gave the feeling of acceleration,
even as, on paper, it slowed down. Nevertheless, I still hear the
choo-choo, propelled by an engine from Fabrique Stravinsky, Rite of
Spring division. Four years later, the Stravinsky influence has lessened
considerably, although occasionally it peeks out from behind the curtain.
An actual football match gave Honegger the initial inspiration for Rugby.
Machines and sport were big themes of Twenties art (Martinu wrote Half-Time
in 1925, for example). Even so, Honegger was more fascinated by the
rhythm and give-and-take of the game than by the game itself. One finds
this mirrored in the antiphonies between orchestral groups in a huge,
highly contrapuntal gigue. There's one brilliant virtuoso passage toward
the end that sets competing strands together in four different, though
related, pulses.

I consider these four of Bernstein's most exciting performances. The
playing of the Sixties New York Phil is its usual scrappy, but they do
get the body moving. Bernstein emphasizes the jolts and jabs of these
scores, good for the Honegger and the Milhaud, less good for the Roussel.
Even so, Bernstein makes a very persuasive case indeed for this little-known
symphony. The sound improves on the original LPs.

Steve Schwartz