In several senses the delicate, mysterious music of Résurrection is, surprisingly, the result of didacticism:

• After the huge successes of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy underwent a spiritual crisis. He formulated a doctrine to live by, based on nonviolence, renunciation of wealth, self-improvement through physical work, and nonparticipation in such social institutions as war and juries; his doctrines heavily influenced, amongst others, Mahatma Ghandi. Tolstoy's later works were essentially didactic tracts expounding his doctrines. Resurrection, for example, was written to aid the move of the pacifist Doukhobor sect to Canada, where they still live.

• Vincent d'Indy, Roussel's professor at the Schola, was an uncompromising, didactic master. (One critic referred to the Schola as "the school where consideration for structure stifled any personality".) And indeed, d'Indy's influence shows in most of Roussel's early work, including Résurrection; for example, in its harmonic language and cyclical structure. While d'Indy was an excellent teacher, the fact remains that after Roussel finished his studies in 1908 his work made a dramatic leap forward, producing in short order such masterpieces as the Suite in f# for piano, Evocations, and Le festin de l'araignee.

Roussel's prelude rises above didacticism — and, for the most part, above the level of a student piece. It is charming music whose effective scoring presages his later orchestral successes.

Leaving aside some reminiscences from Cesar Franck, Albert Roussel as a fresh orchestra composer is already showing his genius for setting the different instruments as parts of a musical drama. Indeed, it can be said that Résurrection is something of an instrumental cantata. [Gérard Gefen]

The introduction is most remarkable, so remarkable in fact that one at first thinks that one is going to hear an altogether more serious work. What follows, unfortunately, does not live up to the promise of the opening. [Pierre Lalo]

The instrumentation shows no signs of immaturity. The ideas, however, are banal, and their working-out is marred by the usual scholastic faults of harmonic and structural aimlessness. [Basil Deane]

Concentrated listening is required. From the first bar Roussel's Résurrection leads us into a world where time moves slowly. Judged by the yardstick which regards variety as a necessary quality, the piece falls down. But as a prelude, and seen as a heartfelt first utterance, it is a work which captivates by it atmosphere. [Richard Langham Smith]