Spring Symphonies, No 66 - Dutilleux: Symphony No 1


Dutilleux was, and maybe still is, a kind of lost man in French music, hidden because his musical output is scant.  Remarkably little remains for a composer who died at the age of 97.  He sits, somewhat, between the reputations of two French giants, Messiaen and Boulez - who only boast one symphony between them,  Dutilleux at least wrote two.

Dutilleux was born in the midst of the First World War in January 1916 in Angers into a family of musical and artistic linage.  He studied in Paris and like every French composer seeking fame entered the Prix de Rome, which he won, in 1938. His time in Rome was curtailed by the outbreak of war and whilst he worked for a year in the army, he went back to Paris in 1940 to be a music teacher.  He belonged to a generation for whom war, and it’s after effects, were a terrible persistent presence.  His musical output starts with an Op 1 Piano Sonata in 1948 and he turned his hand to a symphony which was completed in 1951 and premiered by Roger Desormiere in June of that year.

Dutilleux starts with a simple idea which had rarely done before.  The Passacaille - is a familiar form for symphonic finales - perhaps most notably in Brahms Fourth. As usual the theme is stated in the bass and repeated over the course of the movement. This is not the grandest way to start one’s symphonic career - it doesn’t strike me that Dutilleux was that sort of composer.  But it provides Dutilleux with the two means that pervade his music and I think make is so attractive - the pent-up motoristic drive and the opportunity for myriad colours on top.

To my ear Dutilleux’s orchestral music has the capability of breathing taking exquisite, colour - moments for true orchestral escape from narrative - those equivalent of Debussy’s moments of glory in capturing the sights and smells of the sea or a Parisian fair or a dark forest.  Where Debussy will always set the scene, Dutilleux has removed those visual/narrative cues.  And so what I get from his works is a tremendous sense of surprise and realisation as a moment of unbounded colour appears and then disappears like going through a wonderfully picturesque valley on a train with a tunnel either side of it.

The music also has an energy - not unique to Dutilleux but also heard in pre War music of Walton, Vaughan Williams, the American composers of the 20th century.  it feels inevitable, mechanical (a mechanised dance form when we compare it to say Bach) and exhilarating.  This carries one through to the next pool fo beauty or moment of powerful emotion.

I don’t think Dutilleux’s music is complicated or clever in the way of either Messiaen or Boulez - it has a human quality all of it’s own.  And it is - I feel getting the advocacy it serves now from a generation of conductors who knew the composer and can celebrate his work.  

The work begins with a jazzy passacaglia theme in the bass.  It’s almost immediately illuminated with the kind of orchestral colour we associate with school of 20th century music making which was very interested in the rich, personal reactions to be had to exquisite sounds.  It’s easy to pint to Debussy and Ravel but Takemitsu, Ives and Max are also in this camp (along with many others).  The trick with a movement in this form is titian unity whilst maintaining variety.  Webern’s Op 1 Passacaglia is an example of how far you can push the latter. The mixture of instrumental spotlighting and full orchestration is potent.  A stew music works to an angular and defiant climax we get a sense of Dutilleux’s explosive power - much more refined in later works.  There’s a whiff of Roussel about both the orchestration and some of the orchestral energy - though the older composer was less given to moments of creeping inter.  Dutilleux plays with these - run up to the  second climax is as good example of a kind of colourful meander and then a climax builds again with greater impact than the first - a side drum and a gong add to the colour and the scintillating coda starts with firm presence but fades quickly away to nothing.  And the way through with an exquisite play of colour and timbre and intriguing highlighting.

The scherzo follows and this is again with a sudden descent introduces his dramatic ear.  The effect is like walking on floor that gives way.  There’s a bit of cat and mouse here - for the listener to be surprised but also unsettled.  The music moves in circular phrases and through every section of the orchestra with a musical paint box splattering colour across the scores pages - we might cite Stravinsky as an influence here but not for long.  It soon develops into a dramatic landscape and aggressive tone - I hear some of Bax’s uncompromising wildness here.  There’s no marked trio or indeed any respite at all except for a silky but sinuous string passage towards the end.  The motor revs up again toward an abrupt end though surprisingly up beat one.

The short intermezzo has all the allure of a smoky tango - desperately beautiful and simple.  Here there’s a reminiscence of contemporary music of jazz and other forms and very quickly it becomes sensual joy.  There’s a touch of the film score here but without any of the big gestures.  It is intimate and intense and at moments ethereal.   So rich and yet so diaphanous.  If there was a charge against Dutilleux it would be that melodically he takes us nowhere, a similar charge could be made against Takemitsu  but what fragrant journeys they offer. Delicate brass obstinate (if there is such a thing) takes the music onward and yet doesn’t stifle the exotics and the ascending passage that follows is simply exquisite. I wouldn’t want to be without these beautifully crafted circular works.  There’s a quote from Satie embedded in the strings and one wonders what he would have made about the languidly of this movement. After a moment the music starts to wind down and continuing in it’s delicate pirouettes the movement and the music fades to nothing.

The finale is a theme and variation and the vigour and volume of the theme stated on the brass is a real shock after the previous movement.  It is almost militaristic.  Is war ever far away from French works written post 1945?
The movement moves quickly and as ever with stunning colour across repeats of the theme from soft mellow, to a heater skelter of percussion and strings to comedic marches.  It all adds to the case for Dutilleux as a supreme exponent of orchestral colour.  The theme itself takes on a number of guises but it sinewy shape adapts so readily to the conditions to which Dutilleux subjects it. More than once Dutilleux seems to interrupt with an episode which suspends time and has us dwell in this garden until he decides to move on.  The retardation of the movement of variation is the reverse of what we expect from classical or romantic models.  The effect is wistful and relaxing.

How does Dutilleux achieve his aims?  Nothing spectacular but a ear for the exquisite effect - often writing for a solo voice above a multi-layered background.  His timing is impeccable.  This work hangs by a silk thread by the end of it’s progress, as the thread twists and shines we are left with an enriched feeling of music which is too full of colour to appreciate full at first. We will perhaps come to enjoy it only for it’s colours - like a late Monet.  but that’s OK, a symphony can be many things and the schema for this one has a certain symmetry and an enduring fragrance.

Dutilleux left a relatively small body of work (his main orchestral works can fit onto 4 CDs), he was like Brahms very self-critical and threw away anything which didn’t pass muster.  So we must assume that these works are what he considered best.  The simplicity of this symphony might be questioned but I think there is too much to intrigue the ear for him or for us to abandon it or for it to go unheard.  It is the closest we come to a symphony in the manner of a Mediterranean garden: something neither Boulez or Messiaen realised.


Here’s a link to a performance on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhcHRS3NIcI

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