Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 147, No. 1894 (Spring, 2006), pp. 51-58 Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25434358 . Accessed: 27/08/2011 06:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Musical Times Publications Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Musical Times. http://www.jstor.org CAROLINE POTTER Dutilleux at 90 The extracts from Dutilleux 's The shadows of time and Sur le m?me accord are ? Schott Music and used by kind permission. i. Cited in Claude Glayman: Myst?re et m?moire des sons: entretiens avec Henri Dutilleux (Paris: Actes Sud, 1997), pp. 138-39: 'Mon cher ami, je me fais vieux, je me sens archi-vieux, et puis je deviens sourd, tout ? fait sourd. Aussi, il est temps que j'?crive mes derniers quatuors!' dayman's book of interviews was translated by Roger Nichols for Ashgate in 2003 as Henri Dutilleux: music ? mystery and memory. 2. Information kindly passed on by Robert Orledge. 3. Interview with Mark Satola for Cleveland Freetimes, 24 November 2004 (www.freetimes.com, accessed 15 June 2005). 4. The work's original title is in English, perhaps because it was commissioned by an American orchestra. Towards the end of his life, Erik Satie poked fun at the post Beethovenian notion that a composer should have a 'late manner'. He told his friend Roland-Manuel: 'My dear friend, I'm old, I feel hugely old, and I'm going deaf too, completely deaf. So it's time for me to write my late quartets!'1 Satie died in 1925 at the age of 59, and never did write a string quartet, though he told his friend Robert Caby that the only thing he regretted in his professional life was not writing down a quartet he had com posed.2 Although early in his career, Henri Dutilleux may, on the surface, appear to have embraced the Austro-German genres of the sonata and the sym phony, since his Second Symphony of 1955?59 he has preferred poetic or descriptive titles. And as a notorious perfectionist, his catalogue of works is small and he has only composed one string quartet {Ainsi la nuit, 1973-77), though he has said many times that he would like to compose a second. Dutilleux's contemporaries have amply demonstrated that in the early 21st century there is no such thing as a single identifiably 'late style '. For example, Elliott Carter's first opera, What next?, was written at the age of 90, and his recent scorrevole instrumental works and concertos are hardly the reflective musings of an old man. Recently, Dutilleux said that he 'cannot have the am bition to imitate Elliott Carter who, at his age, dared to take on the adventure of the opera and won his bet!'3 On the other hand, Olivier Messiaen composed several short works towards the end of his life which seemed minor chippings off the rocks of his earlier output, re-using ideas based on birdsong or stained glass in pieces such as Un vitrail et des oiseaux. However, his final completed work, Eclairs sur l'au-del? (1987?92), is a massive summation of his musical language, concluding most appropriately with a hushed violin line ascending, seemingly, into heaven. And Pierre Boulez, Dutilleux's only real rival for the crown of greatest living French composer (who recently claimed in a pre-concert interview in London: 'I am a cow'), continues to proliferate ideas from his works in progress, chewing his percussion-and-harp based cud in sur Incises (2000?02). Dutilleux, however, has moved into new territory in recent years. He has said several times that he regrets the small number of vocal works in his cata logue, and his orchestral work The shadows of time (1995?97), commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was his first for many years to include a vocal part.4 Dutilleux introduced a child's voice (which, according to the score, can be replaced by three voices in unison) in the third of the work's the musical times Spring 2006 51 5 2 Dutilleux at go five movements, 'M?moire des ombres'. The short text: 'Pourquoi nous? Pourquoi l'?toile?' (Why us? Why the star?) is written by Dutilleux himself. The separate dedication of the movement ? unique in Dutilleux's output so far- 'to Anne Frank and all innocent children of the world (1945-1995)' sug gest that the text alludes to the yellow star Jewish people were obliged to wear during the Second World War years. Dutilleux is the first to admit that his own wartime service was undistinguished (he acted as a stretcher bearer from the outbreak of the War until the fall of Paris in August 1940), but he lost several friends (including the composer and organist Jehan Alain) and joined a group of musicians, the Front national, which offered practical and moral support to those affected by the war (and was nothing to do with the contem porary far-right political party). On a more mundane level, Dutilleux told me that he often walks past the M?moriale de la d?portation statue, which is near his Paris home on the lie Saint-Louis; and he said that the vocal part in The shadows of time was also inspired by the sound of children playing in a neighbouring school building which he heard from his workroom. Always concerned with timbre, too, Dutilleux has also emphasised that the child's voice provides a lighter, higher sound to contrast with the predominantly dark orchestral surrounding. The child's voice in 'M?moire des ombres', and the woodwind instru ments with which it dialogues, are, according to the score, intended to evoke 'the spirit of Gregorian chant'. These Gregorian echoes are commonplace in Dutilleux's work, also being exhibited in movements including 'Litanies II' from the string quartet Ainsi la nuit, and the identically titled movement in Myst?re de l'instant (1985?89) for 24 strings, percussion and cimbalom. But in 'M?moire des ombres', the voice is interrupted by aggressive orchestral gestures which eventually overwhelm it (ex.i). This silencing of the human voice by a loud and powerful external voice has an obvious symbolism. ON 28 April 2002, Dutilleux's Sur le m?me accord?Nocturne pour violon et orchestre^ a London Philharmonie Orchestra commission, was premiered in London. It is dedicated to its first soloist, Anne-Sophie Mutter, to whom Dutilleux had been introduced by Paul Sacher some 15 years previously. Dutilleux's introduction to the published score partly explains the title: 'In both the solo part and the orchestral texture, a six-note chord can be heard throughout the work, either concealed or more overtly, given to soloists drawn from the orchestra. At the start of the work, the solo violin announces these six pitches, first as a monody, then double-stopped; this material is then distributed vertically [played as a chord] by various instrumental groups.' (Ex.2 illustrates the six-note chord.) But in this preface, Dutilleux does not choose to mention that he had used a very similar title and idea previously, for his piano prelude Sur un m?me accord(1977). The Bassoons i & Double bassoon Ex.i: Dutilleux: The shadows of time, third movement, from two bars before fig.28 the musical times Spring 2006 53 54 Dutilleux at go Ex.2: Sur le m?me accord, six-note chord Ex.3: Sur un m?me accord, focal chord, two versions focal chord of this piece is similar, but not identical, to the six-note chord in the violin and orchestral work (ex.3). This use of pivot chords (or pivot notes) is a constant of Dutilleux's mature style, and provides a point of reference for the listener within an essentially atonal context. The composer is also fond of the term 'Nocturne', having used it as a subtitle for two movements in Ainsi la nuit and, more generally, being an admirer of Bart?k's 'night music' and highly sensitive to the mystery suggested by a nocturnal setting. Dutilleux also shares with Bartok a fondness for symmetrical musical shapes, as illustrated in bars 24?25 of Sur le m?me accord (ex.4). This shows the rather traditional relationship between the solo violin and the orchestra, the violin being essentially an elaboration of the orchestral part. But while the violin part is rhapsodic in style, the six-note chords in the accompaniment form a palindrome and, when analysed according to Allen Forte's pitch class set theory, are all identical (o, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8). Dutilleux is always reluctant to discuss his works in any analytical detail, but he must surely have wanted to create a sense of unity here by ensuring the common identity of these chords. There are often close connections between one Dutilleux work and another, connections which in my view are more overt than the stylistic fingerprints one expects to encounter in the works of any composer with a developed individual style. In particular, Dutilleux often links a work with the one immediately preceding it in his catalogue. This is evident in the concluding bars of Sur le m?me accord (?rom bar 169), which closely resemble the ending of The shadows of time: both works feature repeated marimba semiquavers (Fjt in Sur le m?me accord, C|| in The shadows of time) which Violin Pianos rJ> = i3o] Ex.4: Sur le m?me accord, bars 24?25 pervade the texture and herald the end. At the end of The shadows of time, there is no double bar - simply a gradual decrescendo that can continue as long as the conductor feels is appropriate ? but the end of Sur le m?me accord could not be more different: a loud octave G acts as an emphatic full stop, as well as being one of the notes of the pivot chord. Not surprisingly, Sur le m?me accord also has some features in common with the violin concerto Dutilleux wrote for Isaac Stern, L'arbre des songes (1979?85). In the opening bars of this work, the solo line focuses on the lowest note of the instrument, gradually moving away from this low G only to return to it. This gesture is repeated elsewhere in the violin concerto and also appears in Sur le m?me accord, for example in bars 56?57 (ex.5). THE MUSICAL TIMES Spring 2006 55 <)6 Dutilleux at go Lento ( J> =70) Violin p legato Ex.5: Sur le m?me accord, bars 56?57 5- 'Si vari?s que soient ces textes par leur forme et leur contenu, ils ont en commun de refl?ter chez leurs auteurs une ?gale incluation ? la pens?e mystique. Avec l'id?e du Cosmos, c'est ce qui a sembl? servir d'?l?ment unificateur au compositeur.' 6. ibid. Dutilleux's most recent completed work, Correspondances (2002-03), takes his renewed interest in vocal writing one step further. This work was written to fulfil a commission from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra dating back to 1983. Dutilleux originally intended to write for chorus and orchestra, but later abandoned this idea in favour of a series of orchestral songs to texts by different authors. The composer has written in the preface to the score: 'Though the texts differ in their form and content, they all reflect the mystical thinking of their authors. Together with the idea of the Cosmos, this is what strikes me as a unifying element.'5 Certainly, the authors of the texts used - Prithwindra Mukherjee, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Rainer Maria Rilke and Vincent Van Gogh ? have little else in common. All the texts are translated into French and, with the exception of the first song, set in a largely parlando style. The overall title, Correspondances, has a double signifi cance, the first being a literal translation of the French term: two of the settings (the Solzhenitsyn and Van Gogh) are of extracts of letters. Secondly, as in other works and most notably his cello concerto Tout un monde lointain... (1967?70), Dutilleux is intrigued by the Baudelairian notion of connections between the senses ('correspondances'). But while the third and fourth texts in particular focus on timbre and colours, Dutilleux has always denied that he consistently associates certain musical timbres with individual colours. Another Baudelaire fixation reflected in this work is his belief that 'in our world, the divine inevitably finds its mirror image in a devilish form.'6 Correspondances is also typical of Dutilleux's works in that the composer produced a revised version after its first performances. For the work's UK premieres (Birmingham, February 2005; Proms, July 2005) by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo, the audi ence discovered that the original four-movement work had been expanded into five movements. The additional movement is a second setting of a Rilke poem; the first is entitled 'Gong' and the second, slightly longer, setting 'Gong 2'. In my view, Dutilleux decided to add a fifth movement to satisfy his desire for unity in a musical work: the second Rilke setting features clear references to other movements, not least in its use of ascending figurations reminiscent of ex.i which also appear in the first song. Double bass har y. In 1997, Dutilleux composed the four minute Slava 's Fanfare for Rostropovich's 70th birthday concert; written for the unusual combination of four trumpets, four trombones, three piccolos and percussion, it was first performed in March 1997 in Paris, and reprised for the cellist's 75th birthday by the London Symphony Orchestra on 27 March 2002. It alternates brass fanfares with material reminiscent of Timbres, espace, mouvement. For the latter work, originally a two-movement piece, Dutilleux decided to compose an interlude to act as a link between the movements in 1991. The interlude is scored for 12 cellos (plus a celesta which is introduced only at the end), though Dutilleux denies that it was his deliberate intention to surround Rostropovich with cellists. 8. Information kindly passed on by Roger Nichols. Tardieu (1903?95) was a French poet and playwright who loved music (his mother was a harpist). Many of his works focus on the problem of communication and the ambiguity of language. 9. Glayman: op. cit., p.220; 'J'ai toujours conserv? des ?bauches ou, parfois, un peu plus que des ?bauches de pieces commenc?es jadis et je m'y reporte de temps en temps, mais cela ne va jamais tr?s loin. Ce sont quelques id?es destin?es, par exemple, ? des pi?ces pour piano; l'une d'elles est d'ailleurs presque faite, une sorte de nouveau pr?lude. Je le garde pour le jour o?...'. monies open and close both 'Gong' movements, and the titular instrument is the final sound heard in 'Gong 2'. While the second, third and fourth songs are reflective in character, the outer two are more aggressive. Both feature rapid rising and falling wood wind lines almost identical to ex.i above, suggesting that this is a gesture Dutilleux found particularly effective for conveying images of danger or instability. To manage the transition between the first two songs, Dutilleux includes an interlude ? a device previously used in many of his works, including Ainsi la nuit and L'arbre des songes. These interludes tend either to recall previously heard material or, as in Correspondances, to anticipate what is to come. Here, and in 'Gong 2', Dutilleux introduces the accordion (the first time he has written for this instrument), which will play a significant role in the Solzhenitsyn setting, presumably because it is intended to evoke the Russian bayan. This rather unusual text is taken not from one of the Russian novelist's published works but from a letter he wrote to Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya on 9 February 1984, thanking them for their sup port during his years of being hounded by the Soviet authorities. It is hardly surprising, given this connection, that the cello is one of the principal orchestral voices in this movement. Rostropovich is the dedicatee of Tout un monde lointain... and also of Timbres, espace, mouvement (1976?78), an orchestral work inspired by Van Gogh's painting La nuit ?toil?e whose pre miere was conducted by Rostropovich.7 The third song, 'Gong', is the shortest; indeed, in his preface to the score Dutilleux describes this song as an 'interlude' rather than a fully-fledged movement. While its static conception and focus on a limited range of timbres recalls 'Torpide ', the fourth movement o?M?taboles (1959-64), the harmonic and melodic language used is considerably simpler. The melodic line uses only notes from the whole-tone mode beginning on D, and the chordal sequence consists almost entirely of superposed common triads or sevenths. The harp generally acts as a link between the two superposed chords, sharing this function with the vibraphone for the final bars of the piece. Dutilleux is currently writing another vocal work for Ren?e Fleming and the Saito Kinen Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa, a long-time champion of his music, which will be performed at the Festival Saito Kinen in Matsu moto, Japan, for his 90th birthday. At the time of writing, he was considering setting texts by Jean Tardieu for this work.8 As for his future projects, Dutilleux intriguingly said in 1997: 'I have always kept sketches - which sometimes are more than sketches ? of pieces I started in the past, and sometimes I go back to them, but that never progresses far. For instance, these could be ideas for piano pieces; one of them is actually almost finished, a sort of new prelude. I am keeping it for the moment.'9 Perhaps this is the THE MUSICAL TIMES Spring 2006 57 5 8 Dutilleux at go io. Nichols, trans.: Henri Dutilleux, p.135. piano piece which, according to Roger Nichols, he has written for Krystian Zimerman?10 And even though it is unrealistic to expect that Dutilleux will write an opera, one does hope that he will have time to write his late quartets. Caroline Potter is Senior Lecturer in music at Kingston University and the author of Henri Dutilleux (Ashgate, 1997) and Nadia and Lili Boulanger (Ashgate, forthcoming).