Rex Lawson, Orchestre national d’Ile-de-France & Enrique Mazzola – Milhaud: La bien-Aimee – Stravinsky: l’Oiseau de feu (2018) [FLAC 24bit/48kHz]

Rex Lawson, Orchestre national d’Ile-de-France & Enrique Mazzola – Milhaud: La bien-Aimée – Stravinsky: l’Oiseau de feu (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:11:10 minutes | 696 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Booklet, Front Cover | © NoMadMusic

After two albums devoted to Italian bel canto and De Falla’s Spain respectively, the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France heads to France and invite us to dance with a third collection dedicated to ballet music created at the Paris Opera. Rare and unfairly overlooked, La Bien aimée is a gem of collage technique, Milhaud’s work juxtaposing the music of Schubert and Liszt and arranging it for pianola (player piano) and orchestra. Meanwhile, Stravinsky’s Firebird, that incontrovertible masterpiece, transports us to the enchanting world of Russian fairy tales under Enrique Mazzola’s exalted baton.

It’s true, we admit: no-one is really waiting for a new recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird – even of the 1945 Suite, which is more rarely performed than the rather hackneyed one of 1919. But what’s original about this album from the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France is rather the rare work by Milhaud: La Bien-Aimée, a ballet from 1928 which had the considerable misfortune of being first performed at the same concert as Ravel’s Boléro – which, of course, eclipsed everyone and everything else. But this Bien-Aimée is not without its charms; it is in fact a series of orchestrations of Liszt and Schubert, with one piece for pianola! Yes, the pianola, the mechanical piano which doesn’t play quite as “automatically” as all that, given that the human musician decides the tempo, the dynamics and the balances themselves. The difficulty of course lies in perfectly synchronising the pianola and the orchestra: but here, it is pulled off perfectly. Milhaud’s orchestrations of this music by Liszt and Schubert are a lot of fun, and Milhaud enjoys a few flashes of genius, and on occasion an unlikely orchestral hodgepodge with neither head nor tail but which, oddly, hits the mark, if in a somewhat slapstick manner. One to discover!

Tracklist:
1. La Bien-Aimée, Op. 101: Ouverture. Sposalizio 07:18
2. La Bien-Aimée, Op. 101: I. Valse. Impromptu 04:56
3. La Bien-Aimée, Op. 101: II. Valse III 08:21
4. La Bien-Aimée, Op. 101: III. Première valse oubliée 03:12
5. La Bien-Aimée, Op. 101: IV. Valse VI 08:58
6. La Bien-Aimée, Op. 101: V. Final. Grand galop chromatique 03:23
7. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: I. Introduction (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 02:46
8. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: II. Danse de l’Oiseau de feu (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 00:18
9. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: III. Variations de l’Oiseau de feu (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 01:16
10. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: IV. Pantomime I (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 00:26
11. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: V. Pas de deux. l’Oiseau de feu et Ivan Tsarévitch (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 04:40
12. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: VI. Pantomime II (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 00:22
13. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: VII. Scherzo. Danse des Princesses (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 02:33
14. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: VIII. Pantomime III (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 01:19
15. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: IX. Khorovode des Princesses (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 04:37
16. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: XI. Danse infernale de Kachtcheï et de ses sujets (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 04:36
17. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: XII. Berceuse (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 03:46
18. L’Oiseau de feu, KC 10: XIII. Finale (Suite pour orchestre de 1945) 03:21
19. La Bien-Aimée, Op. 101: Final : Grand galop chromatique (II) 05:02

Personnel:
Rex Lawson, pianola
Orchestre national d’Ile-de-France
Enrique Mazzola, direction

Download:

mqs.link_EnriqueMazzlaMilhaudLabienAimeStravinskyliseaudefeu20182448.rar