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Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art (National Gallery Collection) | Warner - National Gallery Collection 2564650157

Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art (National Gallery Collection)

Label: Warner - National Gallery Collection

Cat No: 2564650157

Barcode: 0825646501571

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Release Date: 12th February 2016

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Contents

Works

Alkan, Charles Valentin

Etudes (12) in the minor keys, op.39
» Symphonie pour piano seul: no.7 Finale (presto)

Bizet, Georges

Carmen Suite no.1
» I Prelude (Act 1)
» IV Entr'acte
L'Arlesienne
» no.1 Prelude
Petite Suite d'orchestre, op.22
» Galop (Le bal)

Chabrier, Alexis Emmanuel

Bourree fantasque
Espana

Debussy, Claude

Images pour orchestre
» II Iberia: a) Par les rues et par les chemins
Images pour piano, Book 1
» II Hommage a Rameau
La Mer
» I De l'aube a midi sur la mer
Nocturnes (3)
» no.2 Fetes
Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un faune
Preludes (12), Book 1
» no.8 La fille aux cheveux de lin (The girl with the flaxen hair)
Suite bergamasque
» III Clair de Lune

Franck, Cesar

Panis Angelicus
Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
Violin Sonata in A major
» I Allegretto ben moderato

Gounod, Charles

St Cecilia Mass (Messe Solennelle de Sainte Cecile)
» Benedictus

Lalo, Edouard

Symphonie espagnole in D minor, op.21
» I Allegro non troppo

Massenet, Jules

Les Erinnyes
» Tristesse du soir (melodie-elegie)
Thais: Meditation

Saint-Saens, Camille

Carnival of the Animals
» The Aquarium
» The Swan
Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor, op.33
» I Allegro non troppo
Danse macabre, op.40
Symphony no.3 in C minor, op.78 'Organ Symphony'
» Maestoso - Allegro

Satie, Erik

Gnossiennes (6)
» no.1 Lent
» no.3 Lent
Gymnopedies (3)
» I Lent et douloureux

Severac, Deodat de

Cerdana: Five Picturesque Etudes
» no.4 Les muletiers devant le Christ de Llivia

Works

Alkan, Charles Valentin

Etudes (12) in the minor keys, op.39
» Symphonie pour piano seul: no.7 Finale (presto)

Bizet, Georges

Carmen Suite no.1
» I Prelude (Act 1)
» IV Entr'acte
L'Arlesienne
» no.1 Prelude
Petite Suite d'orchestre, op.22
» Galop (Le bal)

Chabrier, Alexis Emmanuel

Bourree fantasque
Espana

Debussy, Claude

Images pour orchestre
» II Iberia: a) Par les rues et par les chemins
Images pour piano, Book 1
» II Hommage a Rameau
La Mer
» I De l'aube a midi sur la mer
Nocturnes (3)
» no.2 Fetes
Prelude a l'Apres-midi d'un faune
Preludes (12), Book 1
» no.8 La fille aux cheveux de lin (The girl with the flaxen hair)
Suite bergamasque
» III Clair de Lune

Franck, Cesar

Panis Angelicus
Prelude, Chorale and Fugue
Violin Sonata in A major
» I Allegretto ben moderato

Gounod, Charles

St Cecilia Mass (Messe Solennelle de Sainte Cecile)
» Benedictus

Lalo, Edouard

Symphonie espagnole in D minor, op.21
» I Allegro non troppo

Massenet, Jules

Les Erinnyes
» Tristesse du soir (melodie-elegie)
Thais: Meditation

Saint-Saens, Camille

Carnival of the Animals
» The Aquarium
» The Swan
Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor, op.33
» I Allegro non troppo
Danse macabre, op.40
Symphony no.3 in C minor, op.78 'Organ Symphony'
» Maestoso - Allegro

Satie, Erik

Gnossiennes (6)
» no.1 Lent
» no.3 Lent
Gymnopedies (3)
» I Lent et douloureux

Severac, Deodat de

Cerdana: Five Picturesque Etudes
» no.4 Les muletiers devant le Christ de Llivia

About

The nineteenth century was a remarkable time for music in Western Europe, and the Romantic ideals of the era – expressive liberty, bold emotional contrasts and projections of subjective experience – were particularly meaningful for the composers of post-Revolutionary France. Their celebrated masterworks are paired here with paintings by the vastly influential Eugène Delacroix – himself an engine of artistic revolution – and artworks by a younger generation of painters that revered him.

Eugène Delacroix was the very engine of revolution that helped transform the art of French painting in the nineteenth century. At his death in 1863, he was the most revered artist in Paris. The younger generation of painters from Edgar Degas to Vincent van Gogh scrambled to pay homage to his achievement and to explore his aesthetic theories, as articulated in his life’s work, much of which was accessible to the public, and in his incisive critical writings. If he was often described appropriately as the last painter of the Grand Style, he was equally one of the first modern masters and arguably the most influential artist of his epoch. Paul Signac, in his seminal treatise D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionnisme, credited the genius of Romanticism with liberating colour and technique irrevocably from traditional rules and practice, while Paul Cézanne observed, “We all paint in Delacroix’s language.”

Few terms of art history have proved more controversial than Romanticism. It has been used to express the highest praise and the lowest contempt, as a revered mark of individual expression or a label for what Goethe called the “weak, sickly and ill” in art. While Goethe’s vast verse tragedy, Faust, drew lessons from “strong and healthy” classical antiquity, the play’s kaleidoscopic psychological landscape and ultimate transcendence of the mundane inspired generations of Romantic artists, writers and musicians. In essence Romanticism thrived on contradiction, on the mind’s volatility and openness to the infinite.

“Romantic” first appeared in an English dictionary in 1659, associated with the flavour of the Romance language of medieval France and chivalric verse legends about characters such as Charlemagne, Roland and Arthur. It flowed into French and German sources, initially used to mock the wild and the irrational, and subsequently as an approving label for all things sublime and spontaneous in literature. The definition of a Romantic period in art was first drafted by German writers, Novalis and the Schlegel brothers among them. In 1798 Novalis wrote, “By endowing the commonplace with a lofty significance, the ordinary with a significant aspect, the familiar with the merit of the unfamiliar, the finite with the appearance of infinity, I am Romanticising.”

Theorists and critics fought verbal battles for and against Romanticism; artists, meanwhile, explored the creative possibilities of expressive liberty, bold emotional contrasts and projections of subjective experience. The compositions on this recording chart a century of musical Romanticism in France. Some, such as Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto No.1, connect with the revolutionary fervour of Delacroix’s art; some, such as Debussy’s La Mer and Nocturnes, capture the elusive nature of Impressionist paintings; while others blend elements of classical restraint with Romantic passion. The latter can be heard in the Symphony for Solo Piano from Charles-Valentin Alkan’s 12 Etudes in All the Minor Keys, a work wild at heart yet logical and refined in form, and in the Sonata in A for violin and piano by César Franck.

The exotic and the dangerous became common themes in Romantic art, clearly present in the Coptic Egyptian setting and eroticism of Jules Massenet’s opera Thaïs. Bizet’s Carmen, which caused a mighty scandal at its premiere in Paris in 1875, challenged social conventions through its story of a gypsy femme fatale and her death at the hands of the gullible soldier she seduces. The opera embraced exoticism with its Spanish setting, taking place in a land geographically close to but culturally distinct from France. Many other French composers were fascinated by Spain, some to the point of obsession. Emanuel Chabrier’s orchestral rhapsody España and Edouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, a violin concerto in all but name, extracted their vital energy from Spanish musical idioms and dance traditions.

Romantic angst and emotional turmoil were generally discouraged in music for the Roman Catholic Church. In 1855 Charles Gounod, best known today for his opera Faust, created a model of austere purity in the Benedictus of his Saint Cecilia Mass. There is something austerely simple, even mystical, about Erik Satie’s miniatures for piano, the popular Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes of the late 1880s. These pioneering works, with their diatonic and modal harmonies and neoclassical grace, presented a strikingly individual, radical new alternative to the expressive extremes of late musical Romanticism.

Contents:
CD1
GEORGES BIZET
1. Carmen Suite no.1: I. Prélude
2. Carmen Suite no.1: IV. Entr'acte IV
Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse/Michel Plasson
3. L'Arlésienne op.23 - Act I: Prélude
Orfeón Donostiarra, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse/Michel Plasson
4. Petite Suite d'Orchestre, op.22: Galop (Le bal) Presto
Paavo Järvi/Orchestre de Paris

VALENTIN ALKAN
5. 12 Etudes dans les tons mineurs, op.39, nos.4-7: Symphony for Piano Solo - 7. Finale (Presto)
Ronald Smith

CHARLES GOUNOD
6. Messe solennelle de Sainte Cécile: VI. Benedictus
Georges Prêtre

CESAR FRANCK
7. Panis angelicus
Barbara Hendricks, Erik Lundkvist, Stockholm Chamber Orchestra/Eric Ericson
8. Violin Sonata in A major: Allegretto ben moderato
Augustin Dumay, Jean-Philippe Collard

9. Prélude, Choral et Fugue: II. Choral
Aldo Ciccolini

EMMANUEL CHABRIER
10. Espana, rhapsodie pour orchestre
Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire/Pierre Dervaux
11. Bourrée fantasque
Aldo Ciccolini

EDOUARD LALO
12. Symphonie espagnole en ré mineur pour violon et orchestre op.21: I. Allegro non troppo
Augustin Dumay, Orchestre Du Capitole De Toulouse/Michel Plasson

ERNEST CHAUSSON
13. Concert en ré majeur op.21 pour piano, violon et quatuor à cordes: II. Sicilienne (Pas vite)
Jean Philippe Collard, Augustin Dumay, Quatuor Muir

JULES MASSENET
14. Méditation de Thaïs
Augustin Dumay, Orchestre Philharmonic de Monte Carlo, Manuel Rosenthal
15. Les Erinnyes: Tristesse du soir (mélodie-élégie)
Barbara Hendricks, Michel Dalberto, Christoph Richter

ERIK SATIE
16. Six Gnossiennes: No.1: Lent
17. Trois Gymnopedies: No.1
18. Six Gnossiennes: No.3: Lent
Anne Queffélec

CD2
CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS
1. Le Carnaval des animaux: VII. Aquarium
Michel Plasson
2. Le Carnaval des animaux: XIII. Le cygne [Andantino grazioso]
Renaud Capuçon
3. Cello Concerto No. 1 in A Minor, Op.33: I. Allegro non troppo
Mstislav Rostropovich, London Philharmonic Orchestra/Carlo Maria Giulini
4. Danse macabre, poème symphonique Op.40
Yordanoff, Orchestre de Paris/Pierre Dervaux
5. Symphony No. 3, 'Organ' Op. 78: Maestoso - Allegro
Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse/Michel Plasson

DEODAT DE SEVERAC
6. Cerdana, 5 Etudes pittoresques: IV. Les muletiers devant le Christ de Llivia (Complainte)
Aldo Ciccolini

CLAUDE DEBUSSY
7. La Mer: I. De L'aube a midi sur la mer
Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse/Michelle Plasson
8. Préludes, Livre I: No.8 La fille aux cheveux de lin
Aldo Ciccolini
9. Nocturnes: II. Fêtes
Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse/Michelle Plasson
10. Images, 1ère série: Hommage à Rameau
Samson François
11. Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune
Alain Marion, Orchestre National de l'ORTF/Jean Martinon
12. Suite Bergamasque: III. Clair de lune
Samson François
13. Images, II: Ibéria: a) Par les rues et par les chemins
Orchestre National de l'ORTF/Jean Martinon

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