Philippe Fénelon: music of yesterday and today

10With his eight operas as the main focus, Philippe Fénelon’s catalog today includes more than a hundred works covering all genres. This double CD dedicated to small groups gives pride of place to percussion.

The first CD of the album is a Radio France reissue (quite rare within the same label) of a 1997 recording bringing together, around seven works ranging from solo to trio, a host of fabulous artists. Thus the immense and late Maryvonne Le Dizès, then soloist of the EIC, who performs here Homage (To Tiepolo)a virtuoso piece, masterfully conducted, which lacks neither eloquence nor brilliance, like the graphic outline of the Italian painter. Another soloist of the EIC in the 90s, the pianist Florent Boffard is alone in Halley (1986), name of a comet that reappeared in the sky on the same date. The serial technique prints a somewhat dated style, playing on the alternation of eruptive, even angry writing and more relaxed moments, with suspended time. We find the pianist in Epilogue where the sound constellation is organized around polar notes maintained by the pedal and repetition. Boffard’s dazzling, energetic yet controlled playing gives the work its full resonant and harmonic scope. Florent Jodelet (soloist of the National Orchestra of France) was then 25 years old and already had superb mastery which allows one to appreciate Zabak (“Earth” in the Nouba language) from 1994. The material is granular, between dry, short sounds (rattles) and continuous flow (rain stick). The percussion is with bare hands on the skins (frame drum, congas, djembe) from which the percussionist draws a rich range of sounds, with finesse and musicality. Florent Jodelet is in a trio with harpist Sylvie Beltrando and double bassist Joëlle Léandre in Two Epigrams. Time stretches and the music breathes, to the rhythm of the double bass player, in music which reintroduces a certain melodic dimension. If the harp retains its autonomy, the timbral alloys between percussion and double bass are tasty. Nights (1990) are written for Joëlle Léandre on poems by the composer from which she takes words or phrases which nourish both her imagination and her play. A space is left to the interpreter/performer who gives voice, spoken but also sung (Nights III).

Anticipating the cycle Mythology, Night fights (1986-87) combining Florent Boffard and Florent Jodelet are marvelous. In Daedalus improvises the maze dancethe alert and incisive piano is conductive, doubled and amplified by the percussion which gives it its aura of resonance. The last slow and dreamy part takes on the appearance of a ceremonial. The writing is virtuoso and the contrasts dizzying in They were sacrificed by Icarus : the sounds of the piano are beaten by the snare drum and immerse themselves in the resonance of the tube bells and other rattlesnakes before merging in the well-sounding space of an octave.

Much more recent, the two pieces brought together in the second CD feature percussionist Florent Jodelet. He surrounds himself with three other percussionists from the Orchester National de France, Didier Benetti, Emmannuel Curt and Gilles Ranticelli in Paleomusic of 2014. The work, written for 22 lithophones and percussion, has on a rectangular support oblong polished stones from the Neolithic era (coming from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris) which the performers hit with small wooden hammers. Fénelon leaves the choice of pitches to the performers. The sound is clear and delicate, with a short resonance. Other percussions, such as this geophone which introduces the work, the rain stick, bells and various chimes are heard during transition between sections. We look in vain for a coherence in this curious assembly and this mineral abundance, which still sounds good.

The idea of ​​associating steel drums, the popular Caribbean instrument with rolling sounds, with the string quartet is not obvious. Yet this is what Philippe Fénelon does in Still Dream, a recent piece created in 2023 on Radio France, inviting alongside Florent Jodelet and his four steel-drums the Diotima Quartet. The journey and the dream preside over the titles of the seven sequences of the work where the tremolo steel drums often hem the part of the string quartet (Suspended song, Blue light metal) or play with him as an understudy (Fragmented mirror). Fénelon probes the bass of their range in Flamenco singing (Deep singing) and their ability to imitate the sound of an imaginary animal (Roars). The confrontation of the two sound universes is effective in Recitative until the quote from the theme of the promenade of Paintings at an exhibition by Mussorgsky who cuts short the muscular exchanges. The heterogeneity of the writing is at work and the wandering of the speech is a little disconcerting, taken on with panache by the always in tune performance of the five performers.

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