Dolce Suono's "Rouge, blanc et bleu' (2nd review)

The enduring but ambivalent connection between France and America goes back as far as the Colonial Period and has profoundly affected the food, music, politics, warfare, lovemaking and literature of both countries in ways that are rare for two countries with such different temperaments. Similarly, the relationship between French and American music represents a complex mix of reciprocal influences that are hard to tease apart and analyze, yet are ubiquitous in the sonorities and harmonies that have emerged in both countries.

There would be no Copland or Bernstein without a Debussy and a Ravel, and no Milhaud or Poulenc without a liberal borrowing of American motifs. The influence of the great Parisian teacher of composition, Nadia Boulanger, is found everywhere in American music. Yet there is no unmistakable "stamp" of one musical culture on the other. Rather, they borrow from each other in an "osmotic" way that lets the musicians and composers of either country retain their own idiom.

Thus Dolce Suono's theme, "Rouge, Blanc, et Bleu: American-French Connections," though understated in the music itself, had the right feeling. Three vintage compositions by French composers, and a newly commissioned Rhapsodie by Philadelphia's own Andrea Clearfield, came together more in sentiment than in reality.

What brought it all together

The Frenchmen composed in their own distinct styles, and the Philadelphian does so in her alternately warm and brooding way, but what brought it all together was a lyricism combined with introspection that the French and Americans do so well. And the felicitous "salon" instrumentation of flute, harp, violin, viola and cello offered a suitable ensemble for three French composers and a Philadelphian.

Each piece bore the mark of its own country of origin and displayed its own unique character. Nevertheless, there were enough commonalities to give the program coherence, and the superb interpretations by the musicians captured les accents françaises throughout.

Why Casadesus didn't quite make it

The first piece on the program was the Quintet, Op. 10 for Flute, Violin, Viola, Cello and Harp by Robert Casadesus. The renowned pianist doubled as a composer who embodied the precision, clarity and elegance of Classicism, manifest in this Quintet as flawlessly performed by the ensemble. Taken together, the three movements of Sinfonia, Barcarola and Saltarello melded elements of French impressionism yet were well structured in the classical tradition.

Perhaps you could sense in this piece why Casadesus's compositions never made it to the standard repertoire. While it's beautifully constructed and rich with lyricism and texture, it never peaked emotionally, despite the musicians' expressive efforts. Beauty without understanding can be appreciated but is neither memorable nor transformative.

Late Debussy, with psychological tension

Next came Claude Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp, composed in 1915 toward the end of his life— what is sometimes called his "neo-classical" period. Given that Debussy is most appreciated for his imagistic tone poems, the movements of Pastorale (Lento, dolce rubato), Interlude (Tempo di minuetto), and Finale (Allegro moderato ma risoluto) surprised this listener with their sense of repressed passion, psychological tension and dramatic impact, culminating with a soaring flute solo brilliantly played by Stillman and the viola's stunning pizzicato passage. The latter was flawlessly executed by Burchard Tang, a Philadelphia orchestra musician like the Dolce Suono violinist Paul Arnold and cellist Yumi Kendall.

Here the Dolce Suono group performed at its very best, with both intensity and virtuosity, offering a moving interpretation that captured the "inner music" beyond the score itself. Coline Marie Orliac excelled on harp— an instrument that like the flute, ideally complements a string ensemble.

With a little inspiration from Monet

After intermission, the musical energy intensified further with the world premier of Andrea Clearfield's Rhapsodie for Flute, Harp, and String Trio, a composition commissioned by William A. (Wally) Loeb, a low-profile Philadelphia arts patron who runs his own competition for emerging performers. For this occasion, Stillman requested a piece tailored for a harp and strings ensemble, and she suggested the French-American connection by showing Clearfield a reproduction of one of Monet's "Lily Pond" paintings, one with dark and subtle hues contrasting with the late afternoon fiery sun reflected in the water. (Clearfield's mother is a painter, and the composer told me that she herself has an aesthetic proclivity for translating colors into music.) The associations with impressionist art stimulated Clearfield's thematic material, and the rhapsody form afforded her a resilient, expressive vehicle through which she could convey a variety of moods.

The stentorian tones of the initial open G chord were followed by a series of trills leading to the first statement of the melodic theme by the flute. In the Romantic tradition, the music then underwent a series of visceral changes expressed through major and minor modes, with modifications, manipulations and morphings developing in a fantasy-like way throughout, along with some folk, orchestral and jazz references.

From the noble to the primitive

Both the composition and the way it was performed had a quality of organic evolution of visceral emotions, varying from the noble and brooding to the primitive and disturbing, culminating in a complex challenge to Arnold, the violinist, in which he led a whole series of musical events in the ensemble that kept modulating, with bundles of 16th notes and rapid meter changes, evoking fire and energy mixed with dark and mysterious places of a mind contemplating its own nature.

Clearfield's piece succeeded not so much because it was in any way "French" but because of its daring use of many musical traditions that gave it a sense of the collective unconscious arising out of a deep well of introspection and experience.

The concert concluded with Chant de Linos by Andre Jolivet, a fine 20th-Century French composer (1905-1974) who deserves to be better known. Jolivet, who was interested in the evocation of ritual in his music, wrote that a "chant de linos" was an ancient Greek mourning chant, with wailing and dancing. This piece was a stunning expression of trance-like states of consciousness that, like Clearfield's Rhapsodie, captured something of the "shadow" side of human nature. A few French composers, such as Ravel and Messaien in different ways, managed at times to enter this dark, primitive realm to great musical effect. In that respect, Jolivet's work resembles Clearfield's, representing perhaps the most meaningful, if serendipitous French-American connection of the evening. â—†





To read another review by Tom Purdom, click here.