Search - Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, Mariss Jansons :: Poulenc: Gloria [Hybrid SACD]

Jansons catches fire in both works

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 06/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"When I was younger the Poulenc Gloria attained semi-popular status, which is easy to understand given its glitzy surface and romping tunes (I've never quite believed in Poulenc's conversion from gay boulevardier to sober Catholic). Leonard Bernsteinr ecorded it with the NY Philharmonic, and there was another competitive version from Georges Pretre on EMI. Jansons gives us a surprisingly committed, even jazzy reading with lots of punch. His Concertgebouw orchestra plays better than either of those earlier rivals, and the hybrid SACD recording is ravishing. It does have the flaw, however, that the chorus is set far back and sounds a bit cavernous.





Honegger's reputation has eeclined steadily from his height in the days of early modernism when you could titillate an audience by imitating a train leaving the station, and like Poulenc he was given to cheeky harmonies that sound more cabaret than concert hall today. but no less than Karajan recorded the Sym. #3 'Liturgique,' but Jansons' reading is more propulsive, lean, and Machine Age. despite the religious title, the first movement is in Honegger's patented train-leaving-the-station mode. It's rather too jaunty to be taken seriously as a Dies Irae. The second movement De Profundis gets more serious but doesn't, to my ears at least, rise much above movie music. The last movement, Dona Nobis Pacem, is more restless than you'd expect, but there has to be an agitated state, I suppose, to contrast with the peace being beseeched form God. As you can tell, I am not carried away by either work, but Amsterdam has a strong tradition of French performance, and this glossy CD adds to it impressively."