gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONESEPTEMBER 201963recordishimself,directinghisLesSiècles
ensemble (live on Actes Sud, 9/13). In fact
the response of the LSO on the night was
more sharply defi ned than the French
‘period’ band, no less attentive to Debussy’s
already well-formed orchestral imagination,
warmed by more vibrato all the same, and
relatively undisturbed by audience noise.
So much here is prescient of later and more
familiar music; and yet the nocturnal,
Iberian mood of the second-movement
‘Fêtes’ and the erotic ebb and fl ow of the
following ‘Rêve’ are worth savouring on
their own terms.
From just a year or two later, Massenet’s
Le Cid ballet (1885) indulges in the mostunashamedlypictorialSpanishry on
the programme, replete with castanets,
tambourine and snake-hipped rhythms.
Roth has the repertoire of French dance
down to a T – I remember a BBC Prom
where he directed Rameau with a Lully-
style stick banging the fl oor of the
podium – and he builds this six-movement
suite towards a concluding ‘Navarraise’ of
terrifi c swagger.
Applause between movements of the
Lalo is retained – and so is Roth’s gentle
hint to the audience that they should save
it for the end – which, in the second half,
they do. Pure entertainment: I wish I had
been there. Peter QuantrillORCHESTRAL REVIEWSPHOTOGRAPHY:
STEFAN HOEDERATH/DG
Seriously impressive: Mari Samuelsen embraces a varied landscape from Bach to Badzurahere, which has had an anaesthetising
effect on the whole. As a result, none of
it has grabbed me suffi ciently to warrant
continued listening once the metaphorical
ink has dried on this review. Charlotte Gardner‘The Young Debussy’
◊Y
Debussy Premiere Suite Lalo Cello Concertoa
Massenet Le Cid – Suite de ballet
Wagner Tannhäuser – Overture
aEdgar Moreau vc London Symphony Orchestra /
François-Xavier Roth
Video director Corentin Leconte
LSO Live F(◊ + Y) LSO3073 (90’ • NTSC • 16:9- 1080i • 24-bit 48kHz & PCM stereo). Recorded live
at the Barbican, London, January 21, 2018
This fi lm records
François-Xavier Roth’s
fi rst concert as principal
guest conductor of
the LSO, after some
years working together on mostly new
music, and it has proved a fi ne augur
of both original, French-accented
programming and performances that
take nothing for granted.
Without being required to work against
their natures, the LSO strings cut back
on the vibrato for the cascades of the
Tannhäuser Overture, and with the brass
dancing their way through the main theme
à la Grétry, Roth summons up the Paris
Opéra of 1861 where the opera had its
revised premiere. Such stylish Wagnerisme
sets the scene for Lalo’s Cello Concerto
of 1877, four years after the Symphonie
espagnole. It receives few outings these days,
but the young French cellist Edgar Moreau
(b1994) is a more than worthy rival for
André Navarra (in a classic account recently
reissued by Supraphon, 9/17), setting
a similarly challenging pace for the
declamatory main theme of the fi rst
movement without resorting to the heavy
exaggeration of cello lions of yore such
as Rostropovich and Tortelier, and backed
by exceptionally incisive support from
Roth and the LSO. Moreau draws an
unfashionably generous weight of tone from
his 1711 Tecchler instrument but he gives
a delightful lift to the slow movement’s
middle section, which fi nds Lalo at his most
Spanish (and most inspired). If the assertive
fanfares and fi stfuls of notes wear thin
before the fi nale has run its course, no fault
be found with Moreau and Roth.
The concert’s main event was the UK
premiere of a four-movement orchestral
suite by the 21-year-old Debussy, and it
seems inevitable that Roth’s only rival on