wimpel69
02-15-2013, 10:38 AM
Joseph-Guy Ropartz:
Complete Symphonies + Misc. Orchestral Works
Genre: Symphonic
Style: Romantic, neo-classical
Composer Joseph Guy Marie Ropartz (1864-1955) enjoyed a lifespan that cut across an enormous territory of French music.
When he was born, Jacques Offenbach had just premiered La belle H�l�ne and the year he died, Henri Dutilleux rolled out
his second symphony. Ropartz also achieved an astounding rite of passage in his own work, starting out deep inside the
Franck school, but also embracing impressionist language and ultimately emerging the as the chief tone poet of his native
region, Brittany; late in life Guy Ropartz flirted with neo-classicism.
As a child, he played bugle, horn, and double bass in a local orchestra, but his father desired him to prepare himself for life
in a more secure profession. Therefore, he was given a Jesuit education, then studied law and literature, obtaining a degree
from Rennes in 1885. Having thus satisfied his father's wishes that he prepare himself for profession, Ropartz then enrolled
at the Paris Conservatoire. His early training in composition was with Theodore Dubois, then with Jules Massenet. He also
wrote poetry at the time.
In 1886, Ropartz heard the composition Le chant de la cloche (The Song of the Bell) by Vincent d'Indy, a leading disciple
of the Belgian-born composer C�sar Franck. Highly impressed, Ropartz left the Conservatoire to study with Franck. He
adopted elements of Franck's individual use of chromatic harmony and, even more important to Ropartz' music, Franck's
use of cyclic forms.
The influence of d'Indy and Franck is evident in his first orchestral work, La Cloche des morts (The Death Knell). His next
few works then began to show the literary, pictorial, and folk influence of Brittany, the northwest French region that
was his native province, and were well received.
In 1894, he accepted an invitation to become the director of the Nancy Conservatory. Henceforth, he made his
career outside Paris, the musical center of the country. Because of this, he remained less well known and continued
composing in his habitual style, outside the mainstream of the historical development of twentieth century styles.
At the time, he was the youngest conservatory director in France, but his directorship of the Nancy Conservatory
was a brilliant success. It became one of the leading regional music training institutions in the country; the authoritative
Groves Dictionary says he "brought about a musical renaissance in Nancy." Conducting and presenting serious and
penetrating readings were among his talents.
After 25 years in Nancy, he accepted an invitation in 1919 to take a similar job in Strasbourg, in addition to taking
the helm of the local symphony. Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace-Lorraine, had just been recovered from Germany,
which had occupied it from the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the end of the First World War. Ropartz' task was
to promote French music there, to bring the region and the conservatory back into French musical life. Again, he
was highly successful. In 1929, at the age of 65, he retired from his positions and returned to his native Brittany.
He lived to be 91 and wrote about 200 works during this long life. His last large-scale work was his string quartet,
composed in 1951. He wrote five symphonies, other orchestral music, chamber music, choral music, stage music,
and an opera, Le Pays (The Country), premiered in Nancy in 1912 and later heard in Paris. Late in life he changed
his surname to "Guy-Ropartz." His music was always well regarded for its logic, clarity, and lack of excessive
material. He ultimately adopted the neo-Classical style that had arisen in Paris in the period between the wars,
de-emphasizing Franckian chromaticism and striving for a new leanness of sound and more concise formal ideas.
Please click on LIKE if you downloaded and enjoyed this release!
This upload includes the following works:
Symphony No.1, "sur un choral breton"
Symphony No.2
Symphony No.3 (for soloists, chorus and orchestra)
Symphony No.4
Symphony No.5
Petite Symphonie
Pastorales
Sons de cloches
S�r�nade champ�tre
Divertimento
Pecheur d'islande
Oedipe � Colonne
Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra
Music Composed by Joseph-Guy Ropartz
Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy
Sebastian Lang-Lessing (conductor)
Isabelle Philippe (soprano)
�lodie M�chain (contralto)
Marc Laho (tenor)
Jean Teitgen (bass)
Ensemble Vocal Erik Satie
Ensemble Vocal Jacques Ibert
Ensemble Vocal Opus 37
Orchestre Symphonique R�gion Centre-Tours
Jean-Yves Ossonce (conductor)
Orchestre de Bretagne
Pascal Verrot (conductor)
Kirill Karabits (conductor)
"Thirty years after his death at the age of 91 in 1955, one of the six symphonies by Joseph Guy Ropartz was finally
recorded and released on LP: his Third from 1906 for soloists, chorus, and orchestra with Michel Plasson leading
the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse for French EMI. It was a magnificent performance of a grandly
heroic, deeply expressive, and ardently striving work in the post-Franck symphonic tradition. But magnificent as
it was, it failed to lead to a Ropartz revival. Fifty years after his death, a second disc of Ropartz's symphonies
was recorded and released on CD featuring his First from 1895 and the Fourth from 1911 with Sebastian Lang-Lessing
leading the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy for the French label Timpani. In what was billed as the
first volume of a complete cycle of Ropartz's symphonies, the disc contained performances that could fairly be
described as definitive. The Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique, the orchestra Ropartz himself led from 1894 through
1919, is obviously dedicated to the music, a quality that, when combined with their polished ensemble and consummate
beauty of tone, results in performances that are wholly convincing. Lang-Lessing, a German conductor who had served
as music director for the Orchestre for six years when this recording was made in 2005, brings a wonderful balance
of lucidity and passion to the music, equally emphasizing both Ropartz' masterful technique and his spiritual inspiration.
In Lang-Lessing and the OS&L de Nancy's performances, Ropartz's First, subtitled "On a Breton Choral," sounds like
a more earthy sister to d'Indy's Symphony "On a French Mountain Air," and his Fourth sounds like a less idealized
brother to Magnard's contemporaneous Fourth. Timpani's sound is warmly evocative and nicely detailed."
All Music
"The Second Symphony straddles the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the same year is from the turn of the
century, the year after Ravel�s Pavane; the year of Debussy�s Nocturnes and the year before Sibelius�s Second
Symphony. It is in Ropartz�s accustomed four movement format. The long first movement recalls Bruckner with
excited yet quietly elysian writing for the strings rising to determined climactic four-square statements. It ends
with a calming quiet passage. The Molto vivace is playful and broadly suggestive of the lightness of heart in
Beethoven�s Pastoral with some thoughtful reflections to provide contrast. The Adagio takes us back into Bruckner-
Wagner territory; serene and sustained singing lines are the order of the day. These sometimes quasi-Mahlerian
touches are juxtaposed with lissom writing for woodwind. Then comes a sanguine and businesslike Allegro molto
with a chivalric mood recalling the earlier symphonies of Miaskovsky and Stanford. In an ecstatic aside we also
get a theme worthy of Rachmaninov at 3:55 but with touches of the dancing optimism of Franck�s symphony.
This is the first time I have heard the work but the playing and interpretation here communicate with great
vitality and freshness. It will be interesting to hear what Lang-Lessing makes of the Petite Symphonie of 1943
after a fairly ordinary earlier recording from Timpani.
The Fifth Symphony by Ropartz was written amid the Nazi Occupation during the composer�s retirement to his
native Breton village of Lanloup. Its first and second movements comprise a lively Allegro assai which launches
with a real crash and an exuberant Presto romp. We then get a Ropartz hallmark Largo - a piece of really
touching writing which, while holding onto its dignity, has a melancholy elegiac loveliness. This, the longest
movement is carried by the strings but there are some notable noble statements from solo horn and woodwind.
A brief (5:14) Allegro moderato has the clean euphoric classical lines of Moeran�s Sinfonietta but with a
Franckian-Breton accent. The epic-romantic Fourth with its crashing cinematic seascapes contrasts with
the airy classical zest of the Fifth; both powerful works but differing in style and atmosphere. The ancient Jacques
Pernoo conducted ORTF broadcast version had a more propulsively explosive approach especially in the first
movement - it sounded positively Elgarian (In the South) in the first movement. Even so Lang-Lessing directs
a vibrant performance that will not disappoint.
The Fifth Symphony was given its first performance at a UNESCO concert on 14 November 1946 alongside
Honegger�s Third Symphony. The conductor was Charles Munch who has also presided over a festival of
Ropartz works in Occupied France in 1943.
The recording quality in this case is truly excellent capitalising on the liveliness of the Salle Poirel acoustic
without allowing its sonorous spaces to cloud the textures."
Musicweb International
Source: Timpani CDs (my rips!)
Format: mp3, 320k/s (CBR), DDD Stereo
File Size: 712 MB
Download Link: https://mega.co.nz/#!hskxRJZK!aqzhGBXCL8NXN7FNUAzZlFVKJV9c4TKAUvgsuwc A9bo
Please click on LIKE if you downloaded and enjoyed this release!
Enjoy! Don't share! Buy the originals! :)
And a word "Thanks" never hurt anyone! ;)
Complete Symphonies + Misc. Orchestral Works
Genre: Symphonic
Style: Romantic, neo-classical
Composer Joseph Guy Marie Ropartz (1864-1955) enjoyed a lifespan that cut across an enormous territory of French music.
When he was born, Jacques Offenbach had just premiered La belle H�l�ne and the year he died, Henri Dutilleux rolled out
his second symphony. Ropartz also achieved an astounding rite of passage in his own work, starting out deep inside the
Franck school, but also embracing impressionist language and ultimately emerging the as the chief tone poet of his native
region, Brittany; late in life Guy Ropartz flirted with neo-classicism.
As a child, he played bugle, horn, and double bass in a local orchestra, but his father desired him to prepare himself for life
in a more secure profession. Therefore, he was given a Jesuit education, then studied law and literature, obtaining a degree
from Rennes in 1885. Having thus satisfied his father's wishes that he prepare himself for profession, Ropartz then enrolled
at the Paris Conservatoire. His early training in composition was with Theodore Dubois, then with Jules Massenet. He also
wrote poetry at the time.
In 1886, Ropartz heard the composition Le chant de la cloche (The Song of the Bell) by Vincent d'Indy, a leading disciple
of the Belgian-born composer C�sar Franck. Highly impressed, Ropartz left the Conservatoire to study with Franck. He
adopted elements of Franck's individual use of chromatic harmony and, even more important to Ropartz' music, Franck's
use of cyclic forms.
The influence of d'Indy and Franck is evident in his first orchestral work, La Cloche des morts (The Death Knell). His next
few works then began to show the literary, pictorial, and folk influence of Brittany, the northwest French region that
was his native province, and were well received.
In 1894, he accepted an invitation to become the director of the Nancy Conservatory. Henceforth, he made his
career outside Paris, the musical center of the country. Because of this, he remained less well known and continued
composing in his habitual style, outside the mainstream of the historical development of twentieth century styles.
At the time, he was the youngest conservatory director in France, but his directorship of the Nancy Conservatory
was a brilliant success. It became one of the leading regional music training institutions in the country; the authoritative
Groves Dictionary says he "brought about a musical renaissance in Nancy." Conducting and presenting serious and
penetrating readings were among his talents.
After 25 years in Nancy, he accepted an invitation in 1919 to take a similar job in Strasbourg, in addition to taking
the helm of the local symphony. Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace-Lorraine, had just been recovered from Germany,
which had occupied it from the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 to the end of the First World War. Ropartz' task was
to promote French music there, to bring the region and the conservatory back into French musical life. Again, he
was highly successful. In 1929, at the age of 65, he retired from his positions and returned to his native Brittany.
He lived to be 91 and wrote about 200 works during this long life. His last large-scale work was his string quartet,
composed in 1951. He wrote five symphonies, other orchestral music, chamber music, choral music, stage music,
and an opera, Le Pays (The Country), premiered in Nancy in 1912 and later heard in Paris. Late in life he changed
his surname to "Guy-Ropartz." His music was always well regarded for its logic, clarity, and lack of excessive
material. He ultimately adopted the neo-Classical style that had arisen in Paris in the period between the wars,
de-emphasizing Franckian chromaticism and striving for a new leanness of sound and more concise formal ideas.
Please click on LIKE if you downloaded and enjoyed this release!
This upload includes the following works:
Symphony No.1, "sur un choral breton"
Symphony No.2
Symphony No.3 (for soloists, chorus and orchestra)
Symphony No.4
Symphony No.5
Petite Symphonie
Pastorales
Sons de cloches
S�r�nade champ�tre
Divertimento
Pecheur d'islande
Oedipe � Colonne
Rhapsody for Cello and Orchestra
Music Composed by Joseph-Guy Ropartz
Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy
Sebastian Lang-Lessing (conductor)
Isabelle Philippe (soprano)
�lodie M�chain (contralto)
Marc Laho (tenor)
Jean Teitgen (bass)
Ensemble Vocal Erik Satie
Ensemble Vocal Jacques Ibert
Ensemble Vocal Opus 37
Orchestre Symphonique R�gion Centre-Tours
Jean-Yves Ossonce (conductor)
Orchestre de Bretagne
Pascal Verrot (conductor)
Kirill Karabits (conductor)
"Thirty years after his death at the age of 91 in 1955, one of the six symphonies by Joseph Guy Ropartz was finally
recorded and released on LP: his Third from 1906 for soloists, chorus, and orchestra with Michel Plasson leading
the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse for French EMI. It was a magnificent performance of a grandly
heroic, deeply expressive, and ardently striving work in the post-Franck symphonic tradition. But magnificent as
it was, it failed to lead to a Ropartz revival. Fifty years after his death, a second disc of Ropartz's symphonies
was recorded and released on CD featuring his First from 1895 and the Fourth from 1911 with Sebastian Lang-Lessing
leading the Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy for the French label Timpani. In what was billed as the
first volume of a complete cycle of Ropartz's symphonies, the disc contained performances that could fairly be
described as definitive. The Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique, the orchestra Ropartz himself led from 1894 through
1919, is obviously dedicated to the music, a quality that, when combined with their polished ensemble and consummate
beauty of tone, results in performances that are wholly convincing. Lang-Lessing, a German conductor who had served
as music director for the Orchestre for six years when this recording was made in 2005, brings a wonderful balance
of lucidity and passion to the music, equally emphasizing both Ropartz' masterful technique and his spiritual inspiration.
In Lang-Lessing and the OS&L de Nancy's performances, Ropartz's First, subtitled "On a Breton Choral," sounds like
a more earthy sister to d'Indy's Symphony "On a French Mountain Air," and his Fourth sounds like a less idealized
brother to Magnard's contemporaneous Fourth. Timpani's sound is warmly evocative and nicely detailed."
All Music
"The Second Symphony straddles the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the same year is from the turn of the
century, the year after Ravel�s Pavane; the year of Debussy�s Nocturnes and the year before Sibelius�s Second
Symphony. It is in Ropartz�s accustomed four movement format. The long first movement recalls Bruckner with
excited yet quietly elysian writing for the strings rising to determined climactic four-square statements. It ends
with a calming quiet passage. The Molto vivace is playful and broadly suggestive of the lightness of heart in
Beethoven�s Pastoral with some thoughtful reflections to provide contrast. The Adagio takes us back into Bruckner-
Wagner territory; serene and sustained singing lines are the order of the day. These sometimes quasi-Mahlerian
touches are juxtaposed with lissom writing for woodwind. Then comes a sanguine and businesslike Allegro molto
with a chivalric mood recalling the earlier symphonies of Miaskovsky and Stanford. In an ecstatic aside we also
get a theme worthy of Rachmaninov at 3:55 but with touches of the dancing optimism of Franck�s symphony.
This is the first time I have heard the work but the playing and interpretation here communicate with great
vitality and freshness. It will be interesting to hear what Lang-Lessing makes of the Petite Symphonie of 1943
after a fairly ordinary earlier recording from Timpani.
The Fifth Symphony by Ropartz was written amid the Nazi Occupation during the composer�s retirement to his
native Breton village of Lanloup. Its first and second movements comprise a lively Allegro assai which launches
with a real crash and an exuberant Presto romp. We then get a Ropartz hallmark Largo - a piece of really
touching writing which, while holding onto its dignity, has a melancholy elegiac loveliness. This, the longest
movement is carried by the strings but there are some notable noble statements from solo horn and woodwind.
A brief (5:14) Allegro moderato has the clean euphoric classical lines of Moeran�s Sinfonietta but with a
Franckian-Breton accent. The epic-romantic Fourth with its crashing cinematic seascapes contrasts with
the airy classical zest of the Fifth; both powerful works but differing in style and atmosphere. The ancient Jacques
Pernoo conducted ORTF broadcast version had a more propulsively explosive approach especially in the first
movement - it sounded positively Elgarian (In the South) in the first movement. Even so Lang-Lessing directs
a vibrant performance that will not disappoint.
The Fifth Symphony was given its first performance at a UNESCO concert on 14 November 1946 alongside
Honegger�s Third Symphony. The conductor was Charles Munch who has also presided over a festival of
Ropartz works in Occupied France in 1943.
The recording quality in this case is truly excellent capitalising on the liveliness of the Salle Poirel acoustic
without allowing its sonorous spaces to cloud the textures."
Musicweb International
Source: Timpani CDs (my rips!)
Format: mp3, 320k/s (CBR), DDD Stereo
File Size: 712 MB
Download Link: https://mega.co.nz/#!hskxRJZK!aqzhGBXCL8NXN7FNUAzZlFVKJV9c4TKAUvgsuwc A9bo
Please click on LIKE if you downloaded and enjoyed this release!
Enjoy! Don't share! Buy the originals! :)
And a word "Thanks" never hurt anyone! ;)
