Claude Debussy wasn’t the only French composer to write music inspired by the sea. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll find refreshment in an hour of “musique de l’eau.”
Jacques Ibert served as a naval officer during World War I. One of his most frequently performed pieces, “Escales” (“Ports of Call”), conjures impressions of three Mediterranean locales: Palermo, Tunis-Nefti, and Valencia. Considerably less well known is his “Symphonie marine,” composed nine years later, in 1931. Ibert refused to allow the work to be performed in his lifetime, though exactly why is unclear.
The music actually derives from a film score (for a short film titled “S.O.S. Foch”). Ibert was the first European composer to write music for a talking picture. He certainly wasn’t ashamed of his output for the cinema. In all, he wrote some 30 film scores.
For whatever reason, the “Symphonie marine” was given its belated premiere shortly after the composer’s death, in 1963, with Charles Munch conducting. We’ll hear the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Louis Frémaux.
Joseph-Guy Ropartz (1864-1955) was a student of Théodore Dubois, Jules Massenet, and César Franck. He composed five symphonies, chamber music, and a number of choral works. When his friend, Albéric Magnard, was killed defending his home from German soldiers during the First World War – in retribution Magnard’s house was burned to the ground and his unpublished manuscripts destroyed – Ropartz was able to reconstruct the orchestration of Magnard’s opera, “Guercœur,” from memory, since he had conducted a performance of its third act.
Ropartz was associated with the Breton Cultural Renaissance and an ardent supporter of Breton regional autonomy. He joined the Breton Regionalist Union in 1898.
The central movement of his “Prélude, marine et chansons,” composed in 1928 – actually a quintet for flute, violin, viola, cello and harp – is clearly a seascape. The finale is based on an old Breton folk song, “What noise there is upon the earth.” We’ll hear a performance by the Linos Ensemble.
Another composer with a connection to Brittany was Jean Cras (1879-1932). Cras, who was born and died in Brest, wrote a ravishing opera, “Polyphème” (“Polyphemus”), about a forlorn cyclops, unlucky in love, who wanders off into the sea. Not only was he a productive composer of meltingly lovely music, he was also a career naval officer. And one of distinction. He commanded a torpedo boat in the Adriatic, during the First World War. On one occasion, he sank an enemy submarine, then rescued one of his sailors who had fallen overboard. Clearly he would have written a lot more music if not for the demands of his day job.
Cras’ “Journal de bord” (“Ship’s Log”) was composed in 1927. Like Debussy’s “La mer,” composed in 1903-05, the work suggests the sea at different times of the day and under various conditions.
First: Eight to midnight quarter – swell on the open sea, the sky is overcast, clearing at sunset, nothing in sight.
Second: Midnight to four quarter – beautiful weather, beautiful sea, nothing unusual, moonlight.
Third: Four to midnight quarter: Land ahoy!
We’ll hear the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jean-Francois Antonioli.
I hope you’ll get yourself a crusty bread, then join me for “Fruits de mer,” a nourishing repast of French music for the sea, this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
