Concert pour petit orchestre, Opus 34| Written: 1926-27 | Premiered: Paris, May 5, 1927 Walther Straram |
| Length: 12 minutes | Three movements: Allegro Andante Presto |
| Publisher: Durand | Dedication: Walther Straram |
About this Work:|
A masterpiece in miniature, the Concerto for Small Orchestra has
languished undeservedly in the shadow of the vigorous Suite in F, which it immediately followed.
It evokes the spirit of the classical concerto grosso while
employing a voice that is distinctively modern.
As in so many of the pieces from Roussel's maturity, this is "pure" (or unprogrammatic) music in three movements: fast, slow, fast. It is also typical that the longest and most emotionally powerful section is the central slow movement, which is sandwiched between vigorous, foot-stomping music evoking the reveling Flemish peasants of a Breugel painting — but celebrating, in the Allegro first movement, under vaguely ominous skies. The Andante features a contemplative, highly charged interplay of solo instruments; it epitomizes the best of Roussel's art. When the foot-stomping rhythms return in the Presto, all the clouds have lifted, and high spirits prevail. If you aren't familiar with the Concerto for Small Orchestra, I highly recommend it. In fact, along with the Second Symphony and the Pour une fete de Printemps I might just rate this the best of the "forgotten" music of Roussel. |
How does it sound?| The middle movement of the Concert pour petit orchestre is slow, quiet, and tense — characteristic, in other words, of many of Roussel's best slow movements. Here is an otherworldly "conversation" between flute and oboe (108K WAV file) in this movement. This beautiful passage illustrates a fairly common aspect of Roussel's slow movements; namely, the use of relatively static sound patterns with little forward thrust, which nonetheless manage to build tension and importance in a manner that presages later composers such as Gorecki and Part. In this selection, when the oboe finaly advances it tune, the tension has built so high that the relief is almost overwhelming. |
Other opinions:|
In writing this concerto, Roussel, the neo-classicist, was
reverting to the Baroque structure of the concerto grosso, in which
a group or groups of solo instruments are set off against, or
combined with, the rest of the orchestra. But the materials
Roussel used are of the twentieth century. [David Ewen]
Little known because it is too seldom performed, the Concert pour petit orchestre has not, however, escaped true connoisseurs. Andre Jolivet was fond of expressing his admiration for this work of Roussel: he saw in it one of the most conclusive demonstrations of its author's genius; an expert's opinion, to say the least. [Dom Angelico Surchamp] The first movement, an Allegro in A minor, does not show the composer at his best.... As is often the case in Roussel's larger compositions, the slow movement is the most completely successful. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that Roussel reveals a more profound understanding of the classical orchestra in the fifty bars of this Andante than some other composers have done in the same number of works. Not only are the musical ideas perfectly adapted to the respective instruments; each strand appears to derive from the very nature of the instrument itself. [Basil Deane] A cogent example of traditional formality with contemporaneously enriched content. [Arthur Cohn] Each instrument is used rather for its timbre than for its technical possibilities, allowing for an intensive use of an astonishingly clear counterpoint. [Damien Top]
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