Search - Schmitt, Janowski :: Tragedy of Salome / Psalm 47

Rare and quite spectacular

Fred Granlund | Los Angeles, CA USA | 01/26/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is some of the most sensationally opulent music ever written, back when French composers were still under the spell of Wagner but with the added French requirement for spectacle. If you find Strauss's "Salome" bracing but outlandish, this one is for you. The source, a poem by Robert d'Humieres, portrays Salome as victim (of Herod's lechery) as well as perpetrator, and her fate--as the title suggests--is tragic rather than just. The music--the "best parts" condensed from an hour-long ballet for chamber orchestra--tells the familiar tale in lush harmonies and brilliant colors. The Psalm setting is even more spectacular, bringing to mind the first part of Mahler's Eighth Symphony (which was still four years in the future). The range of expression from hushed devotion to wild jubilation is quite extraordinary.



These performances are quite effective--more so than the recent Thierry Fischer versions on Hyperion, which benefit from brilliant sonics but sound rather lumbering in comparison. The sound here is a little more distant, but definitely packs a wallop (the organ and percussion entries seem designed to knock the plaster off the ceiling). And the original Erato packaging is superior to the Apex reissue in its inclusion of the text and translation. Until Jean Martinon's even finer performances of these works are reissued (again), this is the one to have."