After the death of Henri Dutilleux (2013) and Pierre Boulez (2016), it was up to a new generation of composers to take the reins of contemporary music in France. While some of them have been widely known for a few years, they are now establishing themselves not only in their own country but also internationally, such as Marc-André Dalbavie, to whom Ludovic Morlot and his Seattle Symphony Orchestra have devoted an entire album.
With half recorded in concert (La Source d’un regard, flute Concerto) and half recorded in the studio (Concerto for oboe, cello Concerto), this anthology provides the perfect insight into the poetic and colourful style of this composer, born in 1961. An orchestral work composed as part of Olivier Messiaen’s centenary in 2008, La Source d’un regard repeatedly uses a group of four notes from Vingt Regards de Messiaen in a very unique way and with great finesse, alternating between contemplative sound layers and more rhythmical passages.
Written in 2009 for the Russian oboist Alexis Ogrintchouk, the lead oboist of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Oboe Concerto is a combination of both virtuosity and poetry. All the ambitus and potential of the soloist instrument are exploited here, including the use of multi-phonic sounds for expression. Dalbavie composed his Flute Concerto in 2006 for another great international virtuoso, the Swiss flutist Emmanuel Pahud, lead flutist for the Berliner Philharmoniker.
Composed in 2013, the Cello Concerto, is written in six episodes in the form of “Fantasies”, at times dreamy and hallucinatory. The soloists, Mary Lynch on oboe, Demarre McGill on flute and Jay Campbell on cello immerse themselves completely in these three concertante pieces conducted by Ludovic Morlot, whose eight years as conductor of the Seattle Orchestra draw to a close in this very French finale. © François Hudry/Qobuz