Jules Massenet


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Remembering Jules Massenet

Why remember Jules Massenet? This time the chance is not due to a traditional commemoration, or a centenary or a fiftieth anniversary.
It is only to remember a disregarded composer.
History is this way! After his birth in Montaud, Saint Etienne in 1842 the “young musician “ begun his studies under his mother's supervision and when he was nine he was admitted at the Parisian Conservatory where he was the pupil of Laurent for the piano and Reber for harmony. In 1863 won the prestigious Prix de Rome with the cantata "David Rizzio".
It can be condensed his style and his pursuit highlighting his musical theatre, impetuous and sentimental at the same time. Well then, a binomial apparently contrasting, but spectacular for the melodramatic taste of the time. In 1873 he presented at the Concerts Colonne a sacred drama: "Marie Magdeleine" solo orchestra and chorus getting a critics good success.
But his most meaningful piece was the "Manon" first represented on 19th January 1884 at the Opera Comique. A clamorous success which arose him to the most important tops of the nineteenth century end music world. In the discography sector we find a refined and deep psychological tension recording in the EMI catalogue 157-173141-3T by the Cotrubas' interpretation, with the Plasson's direction of the Chorus and the Orchestra of the capitol Toulouse. It is a refined interpretation, where elegance dissolves into the fiery temper of Massenet style.
Nevertheless, there are not only those pieces, even meaningful, since it is forgotten the "La jongleur de Notre Dame" dated in 1902.
TIS has made a beautiful recording (414613-1) where history, myth and mysticism join together, creating a dramatic page without dangerous standstill moments.
Even if only "Manon" and "Werther" are still in repertory, other score must be reminded as Le Cid, 1885, and Thais, 1894. Concerning the "Werther" it must be mentioned the Deutsche Grammophon recording (413304) directed by Riccardo Chailly with the Symphony Orchestra WDR Kln, featuring a considerable cast composed by Domingo, Obraszowa. Chailly's featuring is sagacious, fresh and philological, creating a descriptive sound that is surely better than the Philips 416854 recording, directed by Colin Davis, maybe more sonorous , but of less psychological impact. Massenet offers a personal imprint in employing and featuring figures , giving a lyric-dramatic slant combined with a refined orchestration.

Getting back briefly to the Manon, we can mention a reinterpretation carry out by the compositor titled "Le portrait de Manon", 1904 , that evokes the old age of Des Grieux, developing or to say it better arranging the main melodies of the other Carmen.
About the camera production, we can mention the piano duet "Année passée".
It's a series of four books that cover a very interesting stylistic path, for the musician succeeds in condensing the melodramatic aspect, the deep motions of the melody and the pianoforte as a link with the end of the romantic culture. There's a TIS ARN 336025 FK recording, interpreted by the duo Ivaldi-Lee, within contrasts are discovered, as well as the troubles the musician found to beat the compositors world even in the unusual capacity, for others, of symphony and camera musician.
Even the light lyrics, nearly two hundreds, are affected by a hard cultural environment, since the musical crisis were arising, feeling the inklings that already were prefiguring in the Parisian high society most important salons. In the end, Massenet was an attentive reporter of his own time, since his memories were edited in 1912, "Mes souvenirs". Essential testament to understand in details the French opera culture at the end of the century.
On conclusion, Massenet was an outsider, a figure who pursued a simply music, free from grand effects, that comments on the most meaningful aspect of the bourgeois society where he lived and worked, becoming the reference of the literary and artistic world that mirrored him.

Leadership Medica^®