COMPOSERS: Dukas
LABELS: Chandos
WORKS: Symphony in C; Polyeucte Overture
PERFORMER: BBC Philharmonic/Yan Pascal Tortelier
CATALOGUE NO: CHAN 9225 DDD
Only a few months ago I welcomed Jean Fournet’s recording of Dukas’s engaging symphony; but here is an even finer performance. Tortelier brings just the right degree of vivacity to the outer movements, while the haunting Andante is beautifully played and sumptuously recorded. The forerunner of this slow movement would seem to be the overture to Corneille’s ‘Christian tragedy’, Polyeucte (1891). Its glacial lyricism is beautifully captured, and serves to make the composer’s intense self-criticism all the more infuriating. Stephen Maddock
Dukas: Symphony in C; Polyeucte Overture
Only a few months ago I welcomed Jean Fournet’s recording of Dukas’s engaging symphony; but here is an even finer performance. Tortelier brings just the right degree of vivacity to the outer movements, while the haunting Andante is beautifully played and sumptuously recorded. The forerunner of this slow movement would seem to be the overture to Corneille’s ‘Christian tragedy’, Polyeucte (1891). Its glacial lyricism is beautifully captured, and serves to make the composer’s intense self-criticism all the more infuriating. Stephen Maddock
Published: January 20, 2012 at 2:32 pm