Okay, now that I've put my neck on the line, let's see what Roussel himself had to say about this profoundly neglected work:

"My Symphony in B flat was, I willingly admit, a rather hermetic work whose access is accordingly difficult. At the time of its performance, it could be considered extreme."

Hermetic, perhaps. Difficult, yes. But rewarding; for this is Roussel's most emotional and profound work. My wife, on hearing the slow introduction to first movement, asked if I was listening to Shostakovich. A French composer — from the nation of rational, refined music that strives for beauty rather than profundity — mistaken for Shostakovich! The feel of the piece is surprising from a Frenchman. No bon-bons or shimmering waves of beautiful sound, no nymphs or dryads. This is music from the soul — even if I didn't realize it until I'd listened several times.

Now, this isn't Shostakovich. Yet there are other sections in the first movement (after the introduction that my wife mistook), where the oboe plays a slow, expressive solo over a hushed accompaniment in trombone and low strings, that indeed foreshadow the lonely, melancholic passages in the work of the great Russian master (who was only thirteen when Roussel wrote this symphony). Roussel was a pessimist is life, though rarely in his music; but here are his dark moods in all their angst. Overall, you can notice a greater emphasis on melody, harmony and emotion, and less on rhythm and classical form, than is typical of Roussel's later works.

Roussel consciously turned away from the trail blazed by the Second Symphony — a shame! — because the music was so poorly received. Musicians admired it nonetheless, and in this sense perhaps it exemplifies the response to Roussel's music in general; professionals and sophisticated listeners are most likely to appreciate his art. For example, George Auric, one of Les Six, a group of iconoclastic French composers that included Poulenc, Honegger and Milhaud, said:

"In twenty years (this symphony) will be classical in the best sense of the term, i.e., the expression of a very noble reflection, achieved in perfect beauty. The eight last pages are equal to anything."

Obviously, I agree with Auric... except for the unfortunate lapse in the time frame. You may have to work at appreciating this dark, complex, brooding symphony. But it's overwhelmingly worth the effort.

Note: As an added bonus for lovers of the Second Symphony, there's another piece closely related to it: the beautiful tone poem Pour une Fete de Printemps was originally conceived as the second movement of this symphony.

Here's another sample; the opening of the second movement (133K WAV file). There are some very typical elements here, most prominent being the use of ostinato and very long melodic lines. This selection ends with a wailing clarinet line that, as Basil Deane says, "Owes nothing to any other composer."

It is likely that the symphony will always appeal more to the musician who can take his pill without a sugar, or saccharine, coating, than to the general public: but the difficulties of the work do not explain, still less do they justify, the almost total neglect which it has suffered in this country. [Basil Deane]

Constructed, Roussel claimed, on "the principle of development conducted according to the logic of the idea and the intimate meaning of the work" the Second Symphony grew into a strange, almost distorted shape. [Lucy E. Cross]

There results a certain complexity of form that has disconcerted some sincere admirers of Roussel. [Marc Pincherle]

The formal procedures inherited form the Schola are handled in a totally individual manner, the finale being treated as a resumed development of the first movement. The harmonic idiom is based on a carefully controlled dissonance, polytonal in implication. The result is Roussel's most uncompromising and complex work. [Basil Deane]

This wholly unsentimental attitude [of the finale] calls Buddhist stoicism to the mind, especially when we think of Roussel's relationship to India! The subdued severity of this [the symphony's] ending is like the silence succeeding a great earthquake. [Harry Halbreich]

The work is beautiful, rich, charged with a sensuality and voluptuousness that you don't hear in his later works. [Francoise Andrieux]

No doubt haughtier than the three others [symphonies], Roussel's 2nd Symphony remains a key piece which although insufficiently known, should unarguably be placed alongside the most beautiful orchestral pieces in French music. [Dom Angelico Surchamp]