As compared to his contemporary Dukas, Roussel has been somewhat sidelined as a “connoisseur’s composer”. That presumably means that he did not write fat, lush tunes that could be exploited in television commercials, but produced works of vigorous ideas and more subtle quality. Record companies, as the dear old Record Guide (Collins) noted back in 1951, have on the whole tended to fight shy of his music – the Third and Fourth Symphonies have indeed maintained a foothold, but with the ballet Bacchus et Ariane, which is closely linked with the Third, we have mostly been given only its second half, and I haven’t encountered a new recording of the ballet Aeneas for a quarter of a century. Now that Martinu seems to be enjoying a comeback, perhaps the spotlight can move slightly to his teacher, whom he so admired; and if there is to be this shift of focus, the present disc is just what is needed to trigger that change.
For here are alert, rhythmically vital performances of Roussel’s two most famous ballets, which even at the most exuberantly excited moments (like the “Bacchanale” in Bacchus) preserve a truly Gallic lucidity, and which Tortelier marks by a captivating lightness of touch; and when it comes to quiet passages one could not ask for greater tenderness than in the beautiful end of Act 1 of Bacchus (shame on those conductors who neglect this for the more extrovert Act 2), when Bacchus puts Ariadne to sleep.
Le festin de l’araignee, written 18 years earlier, is in a quite different style. Where Bacchus’s trenchant idiom at times makes one think of Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagete, Le festin (which had the misfortune to be overshadowed by The Rite of Spring, produced only eight weeks later) is atmospheric and more impressionistic (in the same vein as Roussel’s First Symphony). It is a score full of delicate invention, whose one weakness is that for its full appreciation a knowledge of its detailed programme is needed – and that is provided here in the booklet. The BBC Philharmonic play it beautifully. If this is ‘connoisseur’s music’, I’m happy to be called a connoisseur: I find it delectable. '