Charles Koechlin: The Seven Stars' Symphony; Vers la voûte étoilée

Charles Koechlin: The Seven Stars' Symphony; Vers la voûte étoilée

C5449 (Capriccio Records, CD)

DDD
FIRST RELEASE (3 June 2022)

Playing time: 56'32"
Tracks: 8
Booklet pages: 16
℗ 2022 Capriccio Records
© 2022 Capriccio Records
Main country of recording: Switzerland
Country of manufacture: Germany
Reviewer: Gerald Fenech
Review of Charles Koechlin: The Seven Stars' Symphony; Vers la voûte étoilée published on 10 August 2022

Sinfonieorchester Basel
Ariane Matiakh, conductor

Charles Koechlin (1867-1950):

The Seven Stars' Symphony, Op 132 (1933)
1 Douglas Fairbanks (en souvenir du voleur de Bagdad)
2 Lilian Harvey (menuet fugue)
3 Greta Garbo (choral Païen)
4 Clara Bow et la joyouse Californie
5 Merlène Dietrich (variations sur le thème par les letters [sic] de son nom)
6 Emil Jannings (en souvenir de l'Ange bleu)
7 Charlie Chaplin (variations sur le thème par les letters [sic] de son nom)

8 Vers la voûte étoilée - Nocturne pour orchestre, Op 129 (1923-1933, revised 1939)

Recorded January 2021 in the Stadtcasino Basel, Basel, Switzerland.

Music by the marvelous, but unjustly underrated composer and 'Aural Alchemist' Charles Koechlin is invariably a real discovery. 'Koechlin can daub with notes as Seurat daubed with bright pigments on canvas; [he] could, whenever he wished, bathe his music in the impressionist glories of Debussy and Ravel or give it the delicacy of Fauré and then toughen it up with some Roussel-like grinding rhythms.' (Robert Reilly) He is an impressionist dreamboat. With a title like The Seven Stars' Symphony, and following so closely on the heels of the equally enchanting Vers la voûte étoilée (Toward the Vault of the Stars), one might think the work was some spectacular, colourist, celestial bonanza. In fact, it’s Koechlin's ode to his favourite film stars – but no less bewitching for that.