This double-album release from the specialist
Palazzetto Bru Zane
label, better known for opera but doing fine here with orchestral music, landed on classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023, and this is really no wonder. The album puts together many attractive features, beginning with fine work from the beefy (34 violins)
Orchestre National de Lyon
under conductor
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider
. The album comprises a little history of the French tone poem from the third quarter of the 19th century to the second decade of the 20th, and it includes many works that will be unfamiliar to all but specialists, along with a few hits (
Saint-Saens
'
Danse macabre, Op. 40
,
Paul Dukas
L'apprenti sorcier
["
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
"] in a brisk, colorful performance,
Emmanuel Chabrier
's
Espana
, and perhaps
Franck
Le chasseur maudit
). As for the rest, there are no fewer than four works by women composers:
Lili Boulanger
Augusta Holmes
Mel Bonis
, and
Charlotte Sohy
; the
Danse mystique
of the latter is perhaps both the most obscure and the most compelling. Several works by better-known male composers also seem well worth removal from the historical scrap heap; sample
Ernest Chausson
's hushed
Viviane, Op. 5
, or
Vincent d'Indy
Istar, Op. 42
, the tone poem
Wagner
never wrote. Or the
title work
by
Henri Duparc
, much more familiar as a song composer. More generally, one is impressed by the cohesion of the program as a whole, even as French styles underwent fundamental change. Most of the composers try to show a mastery of the large orchestra and of the big tune as second subject. This is a highly listenable group of pieces that hearers will be glad to know better. ~ James Manheim