Le Café Dukas

[pjme]

Dutch composer Geert van Keulen orchestrated the Plainte . //http://

https://www.youtube.com/v/FUpAjDEdx0A

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

Thanks, pjme, the orchestration works for me, van Keulen also lengthened it a bit. 

[david johnson]

A favorite 'Apprentice' recording?  I've heard so many, as has everyone here.  I greatly enjoyed the recording by Paul Paray/Detroit.  I have performed the La Peri fanfare dozens of times.

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

A favorite 'Apprentice' recording?  I've heard so many, as has everyone here.  I greatly enjoyed the recording by Paul Paray/Detroit.  I have performed the La Peri fanfare dozens of times.

The Paray is a splendid recording, bright and playful.  Among the many I've listened to, my hands-down favorite, surprisingly, is Levine's - fast, dramatic and with Telarc's superb definition which is something you really want in this work as Dukas was an orchestral conjurer.  Another fave is Cantelli's on Testament - though in mono - for the atmosphere it evokes.  Lenny's is a huge letdown, I expected more from him.  Dutoit and Ansermet I also would have predicted great things from and both seem tame to these ears. 

[Roasted Swan]

The Paray is a splendid recording, bright and playful.  Among the many I've listened to, my hands-down favorite, surprisingly, is Levine's - fast, dramatic and with Telarc's superb definition which is something you really want in this work as Dukas was an orchestral conjurer.  Another fave is Cantelli's on Testament - though in mono - for the atmosphere it evokes.  Lenny's is a huge letdown, I expected more from him.  Dutoit and Ansermet I also would have predicted great things from and both seem tame to these ears.

James Levine on Telarc..... really?  I thought the Lopez-Cobos recording in Cincinnati was the only version on Telarc.  Levine recorded it with the Berlin PO for DG.

[Stürmisch Bewegt]

James Levine on Telarc..... really?  I thought the Lopez-Cobos recording in Cincinnati was the only version on Telarc.  Levine recorded it with the Berlin PO for DG.

Thanks, Swan, and apologies.  I'm at a complete loss to explain my gaffe, as I do not usually favor DG engineering...  I do own both recordings and will give them a listen.   

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Fresh performance. The slightly slower performances let the music breath and shine.

[pjme]

A little bit of information on a work that never materialised: Le sang de Méduse.

Paul Dukas'S Le sang de Méduse:

The rediscovery of a "lost" scenario, by Laura Watson
National University of Ireland, Maynooth

From biographer acquaintances to recent writers, Dukas scholars have been led to believe that the composer left nothing of his eagerly-awaited second ballet Le sang de Méduse (1912–13), except the rudimentary scenery sketches and publishing contract housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. In reality, his definitive Méduse scenario (17 pp., typescript)
and three autograph manuscripts of preliminary drafts (41 pp.) survive in a Yale archive. The rediscovery of this collection calls for a reassessment of the composer, especially in relation to his later career and in terms of general pre-war balletic developments in Paris. Following his 1890s' Wagnerian music criticism and 1907 music-drama Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, the Méduse materials indicate that Dukas shifted the focus of his music-text-stage interests from opera to ballet. In the context of these sources, the composer's last major score and only complete poème dansé, La Péri (1912), should no longer be regarded solely as a conclusion to his creative output but simultaneously as the first step in the evolution of his ballet aesthetic. While La Péri's scenario was also authored by Dukas, the Méduse text is much longer, more complex
in form and content, and furnished with some vivid production guidelines. Additionally, the drafts hint that the composer contemplated an experimental approach to the genre, perhaps anticipating a work with similarities to the opera-ballet hybrid of Roussel's Padmâvatî (1923). By investigating and interpreting the Méduse sources for the first time, this paper expands upon our knowledge and understanding of Dukas. Secondarily, I use these documents to trace Dukas's later compositional processes—which typically resulted in the careful preservation of texts but little to no evidence of any score. A pattern emerges suggesting that his ambitious treatment of literary and theatrical elements was ultimately incompatible with concurrent musical goals. Nonetheless, I argue that the successful aspects of this partial work constitute
a positive reaction to the Ballet Russes' breakthroughs, and to Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé (1912)
specifically. The Méduse collection reveals that Dukas actively pursued and advanced the stylistic innovation of this era, despite—on the basis of his published œuvre—appearances to the contrary.

Source: https://www.academia.edu/2040789/Paul_Dukass_Le_Sang_de_M%C3%A9duse_the_Rediscovery_of_a_Lost_Scenario_Annual_Meeting_of_the_American_Musicological_Society_San_Francisco_10_November_2011_

[brewski]

Happy to bump up this thread with a new production of Ariane et Barbe-Bleue, just uploaded two days ago, with conductor Lothar Koenigs and l'Opéra de Lyon. The fascinating production is by Àlex Ollé of La Fura dels Baus. I saw this opera live years ago, in the waning days of New York City Opera, and found it a bit revelatory, only because like many, I don't know much of Dukas' work (of course, other than The Sorcerer's Apprentice).

The opera makes a fitting complement to Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle. Would be interesting to see both performed back-to-back.

-Bruce