Hérold Le Pré aux clercs

 Day 102

Hérold Le Pré aux clercs

Soloists

Coro e Orquestra Gulbenkian

Paul McCreesh

Hérold’s name is familiar for two reasons. First of all for the overture to his opera Zampa, which was once standard fare at concerts at the local bandstand and the like. Secondly because of the music to the ballet La Fille mal gardée, - although it must be said that the version of the ballet that is usual formed has a complex history - not all of the music is actually by Hérold and in many cases his original score has been re-orchestrated. The famous clog dance , the most instantly familiar music from the ballet turns out not to be by Hérold alone.

Le Pré aux clercs (The clerks meadow, though I never seen the title in anything other than French) was a hugely successful pieces in its day and remained in the repertory in France until the 1950s - more than 1,500 performances are recorded as having been given). It was the composer’s last work - and he died only  few weeks after the first performance.  

It is a typical opéra comique with some very light music and some much more intense and dramatic. The contrast is sometimes quite hard to take - not least the end where after some very impressive tragic music accompanying news of death the music suddenly turns into ‘happy ever after’ mode with a really jolly tune. What it does show is that there was no real division in musical styles between light and serious opera  in France - one sees this even as far into the 19th century in Carmen, where the quintet does sometime seem to come from a different world. Similarly parts of les Huguenots do now sound to us very ‘rum-ti-tum’ and rather frivolous.

But taken on its own merits there is a huge amount to enjoy in this score. The sound world is that of Auber  and Rossini - particularly Le Comte Ory, but I was also reminded of La Dame Blanche. There was one delectable clarinet moment in the first act finale which was utterly Schubertian and a section in the second finale with the main characters singing in 6ths which sounded all the work like something from Donizetti. Hérold’s score was much admired by composers of his time and later - Offenbach surely learned a lot from it and so did Bizet.

There are some cliched moments - particularly the ends of some of the ensembles where the composer goes into what I call ‘painting by numbers’ more and simply turns out music by the yard but generally the invention is fresh and shows some real characters. There is a marvellous comic trio in act 3 which is probably the highlight of the score but the were plenty of other notable examples to show why this opera was so admired in its day and why it held its place in the repertory for so long.

The recording comes from the Bru Zane series, which I have mentioned several times in this blog. The presentation is superb and the notes are highly informative. I hadn’t realised before the close relationship this piece had with Les Huguenots - they are both based on the same source and there is some overlap of characters. Indeed act 3 of Meyerbeer opera actually takes place at the clerk’s meadow. 

A thoroughly enjoyable listening experience.  More French opera tomorrow.