Day 164
Theodore Dubois: Fantasie for harp and orchestra
Emmanuelle Ceysson
Orchestra Régional Avignon-Provence
Samuel John
Dubois is a name which turns up quite often in studies of French music because he held important academic posts and was well respected as a theorist. He was regarded as a conservative figure and was mixed up in the scandal that erupted when Ravel was denied the Prix de Rome for being too much of a modernist.
This Fantasie lasts 15 minutes and I have to say that it is one of the most inconsequential pieces I have heard in this entire project to date. There is nothing wrong with it and it is quite pretty in place but the music just ambles along in a sort of sub-Fauré style but without ever being memorable or inventive. Much of the harp writing seems to me to be quite unidiomatic and looks like piano music. So I am happy to return Dubois to the obscurity from which he came.
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