Ropartz Symphony No 3
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Joseph Guy (Marie) Ropartz
Label: HMV
Magazine Review Date: 6/1986
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: EL270348-4

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 3 |
Joseph Guy (Marie) Ropartz, Composer
Françoise Pollet, Soprano Frédéric Vassar, Bass-baritone Joseph Guy (Marie) Ropartz, Composer Michel Plasson, Conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, Contralto (Female alto) Orfeón Donostiarra Thierry Dran, Tenor Toulouse Capitole Orchestra |
Composer or Director: Joseph Guy (Marie) Ropartz
Label: HMV
Magazine Review Date: 6/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: EL270348-1

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Symphony No. 3 |
Joseph Guy (Marie) Ropartz, Composer
Françoise Pollet, Soprano Frédéric Vassar, Bass-baritone Joseph Guy (Marie) Ropartz, Composer Michel Plasson, Conductor Nathalie Stutzmann, Contralto (Female alto) Orfeón Donostiarra Thierry Dran, Tenor Toulouse Capitole Orchestra |
Author: Lionel Salter
The texts in the symphony, by the composer himself (who in his youth had published collections of poetry), form a moral sermon: an invocation to the glories of Nature prompts a comparison with human distress and gives way to pessimistic doubts over the reason for our lives and despair at war and oppression; hope and joy in Nature, it concludes, depend only on our loving one another. These texts are not set as a continuity but are broken up, serving as springboards for orchestral development of the sentiments expressed—particularly the paean to Nature in the first movement and the tormented scherzo that forms the latter part of the central movement. Franckian influence can be detected in the transformation of themes throughout the work (done with the greatest subtlety) and in a mannerism of nudging the harmony chromatically upwards towards a climactic point, but the music possesses an individual quality, besides craftsmanship of a very high order: what it may lack—and I speak after only a couple of hearings—is themes strong enough to stay in the mind.
Plasson paces the work well and secures excellent playing from the large orchestra, which is recorded with admirable clarity; but both the chorus (which though a bit light in tenors produces very acceptable singing) and, particularly, the solo quartet (whose internal balance seems somewhat casual) could have done with more forward placing if the words are to make their point.'
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