Albert Roussel
Albert Roussel
1869-1937
Albert Roussel was a French composer who bore a musical style which mixed Romanticism, Impressionism, and Neo-Classicism. It is this inconsistency of style which has left the composer lesser known than his starrier French compatriots, at least that is my guess. If I remember correctly, Roussel also had a penchant for vivacious rhythms, an aspect which sometimes evades the Impressionists and late-Romantics, so that is a positive in my book.
I am really only familiar with some short orchestral suites from Roussel, so my listening of his music will be largely exploratory. It looks to me as if the composer put his hand into a number of genres, which include symphonies and orchestral music, chamber music, music for the stage, as well as vocal and piano solos. It seems he wrote relatively few offerings of concertos or choral music, my normal go-to genres for new composers.
Roussel's symphonies seem to have received attention from some big names, such as Jean Martinon, Ernest Ansermet, Charles Munch, André Cluytens, Sergiu Celibidache, Pierre Boulez, and Leonard Bernstein, as well as less-historic luminaries like Dutoit, Eschenbach, Janowski, and Järvi the Elder. Look at the sheer international who's who tackling Roussel's symphonies, and if I searched beyond the symphonies, I am sure I could greatly add to the list with his orchestral suites. Thus, Roussel is not unknown, simply not often looked to, at least not anymore.
With all of this in mind, I look forward to becoming familiar with more of the composer's music and will follow up with further thoughts below if the winds carry me in that direction.
Recordings and reviews currently on hand
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(Green links are reviews yet to come)
Recordings
1995: String Trio
1999: Concertos
2004: Aeneas & Psalm 80
2010: Symphonies (Deneve)
• Symphony 1 & Resurrection
• Symphony 2 & Suite in F
• Symphony 3 & Bacchus
• Symphony 4 & Sinfonietta
2012: The Spider's Feast
2018: Evocations