Piano Recital: John Chen

John Chen

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Cat No: 8557823

Release Date: 01 January 2007

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 747313282326

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Piano Recital

Description
Henri Dutilleux (b. 1916) Complete Solo Piano Music Born in Angers on 22 January 1916, Henri Dutilleux grew up in Douai, studying piano, harmony and counterpoint at the conservatoire there with Victor Gallois, before moving to Paris in 1933. At the Paris Conservatoire he studied with the Gallon brothers, as well as with Maurice Emmanuel and Henri Büsser, winning the Prix de Rome in 1938 with the cantata L'anneau du roi. Returning to France at the outbreak of war, he worked at the Paris Opéra; then, in 1945, began an eighteen-year tenure as director of music productions at Radio France. Since 1963 he has devoted himself to composition, while being in demand as a guest teacher in France and at summer schools abroad.Although he has long been acknowledged as among the leading figures of his generation, Dutilleux's reputation rests on little more than a dozen major works, the result of an approach to composition which is as painstaking as it is methodical. His early works include a number of scores for theatre and radio productions (mostly withdrawn), as well as several songs and also test-pieces for the wind categories of the Paris Conservatoire. It was only with the Piano Sonata that Dutilleux felt he had created a work worthy to be regarded as his 'Opus 1'.Composed during 1946-8, the piece was written for and dedicated to the pianist Geneviève Joy (whom Dutilleux married in 1946). Although its long-range processes are still relatively tonal, albeit with a strong modal colouring, the Piano Sonata is distinctive both in its inclination towards non-French models, notably Bartók, and in its adherence to large-scale classical forms, evincing a decidedly symphonic approach that separates Dutilleux from his contemporaries both older (Messiaen) and younger (Boulez). The work itself is cast in three movements that, while sharply contrasted in themselves, sustain a cumulative overall form, something that the composer went on to refine and also enrich in the two symphonies which he wrote at either end of the 1950s.The opening Allegro con moto sets off with an animated theme in which melody and accompaniment are closely intertwined. Initiated by repeated notes in the left hand, the second theme, though more pensive, is so closely allied to the first both in its melodic contour and harmonic complexion as to be almost a derivative of it. It provokes the movement's climax, after which the first theme is reprised, leading to an assertive final flourish, before subsiding in the brief coda. The central Lent is in a subtly-employed A-B-A form: the first section unfolds calmly if hesitantly, before a livelier idea with a hint of march-rhythm assumes prominence; an elaborate harmonic progression, pervaded by the whole-tone scale, then leads back to the first section, itself modified and ending the movement in a deeply contemplative mood.A 'finale' in every respect, the closing Choral et Variations b
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