Jean Barraque (1928–73) was a remarkable exponent of that elusive and increasingly unfashionable modernist art of making apparently disparate fragments cohere. His music tends to be more robust than that of his close contemporary Pierre Boulez: closer, in some respects, to the Italian Berio. Yet what ultimately proves to be most distinctive about the works on this important and strongly recommended disc is their open embrace of the Expressionist aesthetic at a time when other composers were either seeking to reject it, or to blend it with parodies of still earlier styles. A link between Barraque and the American Elliott Carter also comes to mind, although, once again comparison simply reinforces Barraque's own originality.
The disc offers two of Barraque's handful of completed compositions, both first heard in 1968 (though begun much earlier) and both related to his grand project, based on Hermann Broch's novel The Death of Vergil. Le temps restitue is a five-movement cantata for mezzo-soprano 12-part chorus and 28 instrumentalists which sets extensive extracts from Broch's text in French translation. The subject—the novel presents Vergil's death-bed meditations—is nothing less than the human condition, matters of time and chance, necessity and free will, life and death horror in face of the unknown, the continuing need for knowledge. The prevailing tone of exalted abstraction could easily promote pretentious or featureless music, but the urgency and inventiveness of Barraque's settings counter these dangers with signal success, and even bring conviction to some harsh vocal effects. In keeping with the composer's own ideal, there is more of grandeur than despair as the music reaches its precarious resolution.
The Concerto—for clarinet, vibraphone and 18 instrumentalists—ends with an even more touching dissolution. At this early stage of acquaintance I'm not sure that the work maintains its formal equilibrium over its 27-minute length. But it has a pervasive boldness of gesture and freshness of instrumental sonority that invite and reward repeated listening. The recordings are also rewarding, as sound, in their own right. Without scores, I can't say how accurate the performances are, and the solo mezzo, Anne Bartelloni, is obviously stretched by some of the more sustained phrases of Le temps restitue. But the performances are unfailingly true to the spirit of a composer whose power and boldness reinforce the tragedy of his not being alive to celebrate his 60th birthday this year.'