Symphony in Search of an Audience

While hardly a concert repertory staple in this country, or perhaps even in its native France, Chausson’s 1890 Symphony in B-flat is an attractive example of Gallic sensibility, created by a gifted, sophisticated man whose company was enjoyed not only by leading musicians but also by major painters and literary figures of his time.

Described by friends as possessing extraordinary sweetness of temperament, this thoughtful, loving husband (as his correspondence indicates) and doting father of five led a richly fulfilled private life as well. And he was generous, as attested by his subsidizing of Debussy and Albeniz at the rocky beginnings of their careers. That he was born wealthy seemed neither to hinder his artistic progress nor warp his character.

But this exemplary existence ended prematurely, at age 44, the consequence of a cycling accident in 1899.

A fastidious composer, Chausson created a small body of finely crafted works. It isn’t sensational music in any respect. He was, after all, a Frenchman.

Chausson has, justifiably, been called the bridge between a past represented by Franck, his inspiration and teacher, and a future personified in Debussy. Still, one needn’t be an ardent Franckian (is anyone these days?) to admire the Chausson of this, his only symphony.

Not least among the noteworthy aspects of the 30-odd-minute-long work is the manner in which it both partakes of and transcends the influence of Franck’s much-better-known D-minor Symphony. Chausson avoided the excesses of Franck’s adaptation of Wagnerian harmony by infusing his own harmonies with rhythmic life in the service of spare, potent melodies.

Recordings of the B-flat Symphony come along about once in a decade. Now it appears twice within a matter of weeks. Both editions are reissues--strong, contrasting interpretations by two celebrated conductors of the recent past.

Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969), in one of the first among many releases with which his longtime label, London, honors his memory this year (433 715, mid-price), gives us a sharply focused picture of how the score is put together. The clarity and restraint of his interpretation are, however, not achieved at the expense of the score’s expressive content.

The playing of Geneva’s Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, which Ansermet founded in 1918, is neither glossy in overall sound nor virtuosic in its solos. But one has to admire the players’ response to their leader’s desire for subtlety of execution, particularly in regard to dynamics.

The complementary, rather than competing, version is by the French conductor Charles Munch (1891-1968) and the Boston Symphony, over which he presided for a decade and a half beginning in the late 1940s.

During Munch’s tenure, the BSO was widely regarded as the most accomplished French orchestra in the world, a waggish but accurate description referring not only to its repertory but also to its vibrating brasses, particularly the solo trumpet of Roger Voisin, heaven to some listeners, anathema to others.

Munch’s interpretation (RCA Victor 60683, mid-price), a good three minutes faster than Ansermet’s, is explosively dramatic, with extreme dynamic contrasts and some rousing climaxes in the opening movement, the score’s glory.

The symphony may run out of steam midway through the last movement, when the composer drags in some patent Franckisms as well as references to Wagner’s “Tannhauser” and a curious pre-echo of the finale of Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony, three years in the offing. But even when the composer’s inspiration flags, Munch maintains the pressure and pace.

The Bostonians respond to their fiery leader with a combination of gorgeous string shimmer and brassy wallop. It’s all rather grandiose and tense for Chausson’s reined-in lyricism. But hardly unimpressive.

Ansermet’s generous program--it clocks in at 74 minutes--is otherwise devoted to some exquisitely refined musings by Gabriel Faure, his “Pelleas et Melisande” Suite, “Masques et bergamasques,” and the prelude to his only published opera, “Penelope.”

The Munch/BSO disc offers as its substantial encores prime examples of the gracious virtuosity of violinist David Oistrakh: his unsurpassed 1955 recordings of the sweetly perfumed “Poeme” of Chausson and Saint-Saens’ “Introduction et Rondo capriccioso.”