Louis Aubert (1887-1968)
When due consideration is given to that true golden age of
French music that marked the beginning of the twentieth century, the oblivion
that has obscured the work of Louis Aubert remains an inexplicable injustice,
of which his scandalous and puzzling omission from Grove's Dictionary is
additional evidence. This neglect must be placed alongside that accorded to
Charles Koechlin and Florent Schmitt, among those significant figures whose
rediscovery should allow a better appreciation and perspective on the evolution
of French music of the present century. In common with his two great
contemporaries, Aubert was one of the pupils of Fauré: the high quality of his
work, of a marked individuality, is evidence of the value of teaching that was
able to reconcile the perfect acquisition of a craft with the development of
the personality of each pupil.
Aubert displayed the precocious gifts of a prodigy. He was
born at Paramé near Saint-Malo, where he was taught by his father, a talented
musician. Passing through Saint-Malo, the pianist Steiger detected the child's
extraordinary talents and recommended him to Lavignac: soon entering the Paris
Conservatoire, Aubert won there, from year to year, all the prizes. He studied
the piano with Louis Diémer, harmony with Lavignac and composition with Fauré.
At the same time he pursued his classical studies at the College Sainte-Croix
at Neuilly. This classical educational background explains the sureness of
literary judgement exercised by Aubert in his choice of texts for musical
setting. His career began in this field. Gifted as a singer himself, as a boy
he took treble solo parts at the Madeleine and the Trinity and took part in the
first performance of Fauré's Requiem. A piano virtuoso, expert in playing
orchestral scores at sight, Aubert was later chosen by Ravel to give the first
performance of his Valses nobles et sentimentales. Having adopted the Basque
country as a second motherland, and closely drawn to Spain, Aubert showed
certain undeniable affinities with Ravel, while a more marked preference for
impressionist effects betrayed his fascination with Debussy. An aristocratic
temperament carried to an extreme of harmonic and orchestral refinement is
evident in his first masterpiece, La forêt bleue, a lyrical tale bringing to
the stage the fairy world of children's stories (1904). This important item of
French lyric theatre had its first triumph in Boston in 1911, before being
mounted at the Opéra-Comique in 1924. Aubert's very considerable talent was
then further strengthened in a production that above all confirmed his interest
in the voice. His Nuit mauresque or the Six poèmes arabes exploit the genre of
works for voices and orchestra with a refined emotion and a sense of exotic
colour comparable to those of Ravel's Shéherazade. The three great sea-pieces
under the title Sillages, written in 1911, may be reckoned among the greatest
of impressionist piano music. In the second part, Aubert already gives way to
the sensual rhythm of the habanera, which a few years later, in orchestral
form, would assure him his most lasting fame. Greeted with a brilliant triumph,
his Habanera (1919), his first at tempt in the realm of the symphonic poem,
proved a masterpiece. This work, which was widely performed abroad, brought him
a degree of fame. His career thereafter was marked by ambitious symphonic
compositions, to which this first compact disc bears witness. This great
artist, whose physical attraction corresponded with the aristocratic refinement
of his music, died in Paris in 1968 in relative obscurity.
Offrande (1952)
The short symphonic piece Offrande is dedicated to the
memory of the heroes and all the victims of the war. It makes use of two
elements, a trumpet-call for the dead, answered by the noble and poignant
mourning of the strings. This melody takes its full form in the unfolding of a
passacaglia moving forward in its developing progress. The meditation of the
cor anglais brightens little by little until it gives way to a radiant hymn, in
which modal writing brings together both sweetness and majesty. Sadness
gradually gives place to a feeling of recognition for those who sacrificed
themselves and who can now sleep in peace. The superimposition of the fanfare
on the hymn motif gives birth to a feeling that is both deep and peaceful. The
sober refinement of lines, engraved on bronze, have the noble gravity and
inspiration of Fauré.
Cinéma. Tableaux Symphoniques (1956)
The symphonic suite Cinéma is taken from a ballet first
staged at the Opéra on 12th March 1953. Each episode shows a moment in the
history of film, from Arroseur arrosé to the last Chaplin films, by way of
Westerns and stories of vamps. This symphonic suite should be set beside the
Seven Stars Symphony of Charles Koechlin. As usual Aubert prefers subtle
suggestion of the mood of this or that film rather than the depiction or
description of various dramatic situations. Elegantly stylized music echoes a
waltz of the belle époque or a music-hall saxophone, as necessary, with a
wealth of inspiration in more than choreographic terms.
Dryade. Tableau Symphonique (1924)
The tableau symphonique Dryade is part of a vein of paganism
that flourished at the beginning of the twentieth century. This recovery of
interest in antiquity and paganism is apparent in music in Debussy's
L'après-midi d'un faune and Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé. It has finds triumphant
expression in symbolist painting and in certain writers, such as Pierre Louÿs.
Dryade was originally intended as accompaniment to a film by Murphy, the plot
of which is given at the head of the score. It deals with a wild land on the
coast, where a maleficent god has transformed the fauns into trees, where the
Dryads are kept prisoner. A young shepherd plays his flute, with notes so sweet
and passionate that a cedar opens and lets its captive escape. He runs after
her, but the Dryad disappears, recaptured by the enchanted tree. Above the
confused sound of the water and of the forest, the voice of the Dryad rises,
commanding and alluring. At her call the shepherd leaps from a high promontory
to rejoin in eternity the nymph that he loved. At the beginning of the score
the maleficent call of the god is heard in ascending chords of woodwind and
brass above the trembling countryside (tremolo from the lower strings). The
very expressive playing of the shepherd (cor anglais) is soon heard above the
murmur of the strings (violin and viola tremolo). This melody further reveals
all the passion that it had in reserve, at first in the strings, accompanied by
tremolo woodwind and horns, then in a section where a chromatic progression is
heightened by a pattern of sinuous triplet crotchets, familiar from the
composer of Habanera. The music continues to follow closely the plot. Ascending
scales (strings) and bursts of chords (woodwind) suggesting the pursuit make
considerable use of the second mode. The sinister theme of the spell is heard
again at the beginning of the final section, before the mounting series of
massive chords that accompany the shepherd's sacrifice, after which there is
heard over the peaceful countryside the echo of a distant pipe.
Feuille d'Images (1932)
Originally arranged for piano duet, the five pieces of
Feuille d'Images offer a poetic view of the wonderful world of childhood. One
may remark the restrained seriousness of Confidence, the charm of Chanson de
route and the intense poetry of Pays Iointains, with the exotic languor of the
habanera, a rhythm that has the force of a signature for Louis Aubert.
Tombeau de Chateaubriand (1948)
It is not surprising that the celebration of the centenary
of the death of Chateaubriand provided an occasion for Louis Aubert to offer
homage to his famous compatriot. The writer was from Saint-Malo and his proud
tomb, as he wished, faces the sea on the island of Grand-Bé, near his native
town. In fact Louis Aubert provides here a powerfully evocative sea fresco,
certainly one of his only compositions directly influenced by his own country
of Brittany. The symphonic poem Le tombeau de Chateaubriand is a convincing
example of musical impressionism, aptly suggesting both the majesty of the
ocean and the dream of distant horizons celebrated by the author of Natchez.
Born in Saint-Malo, cradled to the sound of the waves, Chateaubriand left some
of the finest evocations of the sea in all literature. Aubert's symphonic poem
opens with the powerful attack of the waves and the tumult of spray and foam on
the rocks, represented by a fanfare with tumultuous syncopation. This grandiose
spectacle is resplendent under the sun, its climax announced clearly by the
brass in ringing modal tones. The grandeur of the spectacle is reflected in the
orchestra, with a tempo that never exceeds poco agitato and is, in fact,
moderate. The thematic material is derived from the opening fanfare, its unity
and the high degree of contrapuntal interweaving of its elements endow the
whole with a remarkable cohesion. The work develops with pauses allowing the
appearance of the moments of calm that predominate in the central part of the
symphonic poem. Here Aubert has recourse to ostinato motifs of triplet
crotchets, symbolizing the monotonous and unchanging rocking of the waves as
far as the eye can see. Carried by the sound and swell, the poet's dream seems
ready to set sail for far destinations, like this fanfare for muted horns,
mingling later with the ascending scale of the woodwind, soon picked out by the
crystalline sounds of the celesta. There are moments of rare magic, where the
music sinks into the ecstatic contemplation of distant and inaccessible Edens
(the landscapes of Meschacébé?). The motif of the ascending scale brings back
the fanfares of the opening, floating then on the waves of the bass register,
and the poet is left to his great meditation by the unchanging ocean. The harsh
power hidden in the ocean depths and the exoticism of distant dreams owe much
to the use of modal scales and harmonies (notably the second mode used by
Messiaen) and to the important rôle of the interval of an augmented fifth. This
symphonic poem offers a masterly transposition into sound of the art of
Chateaubriand.
© 1994 Michel Fleury
(English version by
Keith Anderson)
Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmanic
The Rheinland-Pfalz Philharmonic was
founded in 1919 and is based in Ludwigshafen. Principal conductors have
included Christoph Eschenbach, Leif Segerstam and, in 1991, Franz Welser-Möst,
and guest conductors and soloists with the orchestra have included musicians of
the greatest distinction, from Furtwängler and Richard Strauss onwards. The
100-strong orchestra has toured widely throughout Europe, with regular
performances in Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Cologne and many other cities and
frequent recordings, broadcasts and appearances on television.
Leif Segerstam
Leif Segerstam was born in 1944 in the
historic Finnish town of Vaasa and studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki,
winning the Maj Lind piano competition in 1962, the year of his début as a
violinist. After two years' study of the violin and of conducting at the
Juilliard School of Music in New York, he returned to Finland, conducting for
three seasons the Finnish National Opera before his appointment as conductor at
the Stockholm Royal Opera, of which he became Musical Director in 1971. He has
since then pursued a busy and distinguished career as a conductor and has been
chief conductor of the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1989.
Other engagements have included guest appearances at the Metropolitan Opera in
New York, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Scala, Milan, the Teatro Colon
and the Vienna State Opera. Leif Segerstam also enjoys a reputation as a
composer, his works including some seventeen symphonies and 26 string quartets.
