Paul Dukas

[Harry]

To bad that Dukas destroyed many of his works, well most of them actually.....

[Scarpia]

Listened to Dukas' "La Peri" in this superb recording.

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Really fascinating, evocative music, Wagneresq chromaticism but with a French sense of flair and brilliance.  The Sourcer's apprentice is also a delightful bit of orchestral sound painting.   To bad there is so little by Dukas to listen to.

[Superhorn]

   If you haven't heard Ariane &Barbe Bleue by all means get the Botstein recording. My local library has it, and  I got to know the opera way back in the 80s on LP with the Erato recording conducted by the late,lamented Armin Jordan.
   It's sort of like Pelleas & Melisande on steroids !  Much more volatile than the more familiar Debussy opera.
  I also love the symphony, which is one of the most unjustly neglected symphonies I know.  It's hard to fathom why it's so rarely performed live.  Leonard Slatkin did it some years ago with the New York Philharmonic, and also made a recording of it the the Orchestre national De France for RCA. ,and I firts got to know it way back in the 70s from the superb recording by the underrated Walter Weller on Decca with the LPO. I don't believe it's been reissued on CD yet, but grab it if it does.
   Dukas considered destroying the manuscript of La Peri , but fortunately he didn't.  This goes to show you that composers aren't necessarily the best judges of their own music. And it leaves me with the distubing  feeling that he may  have destroyed some works that he should not have. 

[mc ukrneal]

   Dukas considered destroying the manuscript of La Peri , but fortunately he didn't.  This goes to show you that composers aren't necessarily the best judges of their own music. And it leaves me with the distubing  feeling that he may  have destroyed some works that he should not have.

We're our own worst critics sometimes. There are so many composers that I wish had not destroyed their own manuscripts. And I agree - so glad he didn't manage ir with la Peri.