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Griffiths: Offenbach – Folies Symphoniques, Ouvertures (FLAC)

Griffiths: Offenbach - Folies Symphoniques, Ouvertures (FLAC)
Griffiths: Offenbach – Folies Symphoniques, Ouvertures (FLAC)

Composer: Jacques Offenbach
Orchestra: Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt
Conductor: Howard Griffiths
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: CPO
Catalogue: 555275-2
Release: 2019
Size: 303 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes

Les bavards
01. Ouverture

Les bergers
02. Ouverture

Le Roi Carotte
03. Act IV: Entracte

Monsieur Choufleuri restera chez lui le…
04. Ouverture

Les Brigands
05. Ouverture

Ba-Ta-Clan
06. Ouverture

Genevieve de Brabant
07. Ouverture – Act III Entracte

Monsieur et Madame Denis
08. Ouverture

La Creole
09. Ouverture

La princesse de Trébizonde
10. Ouverture

Madame Favart
11. Ouverture

L’île de Tulipatan
12. Ouverture

As Adolf Tegtmeier, the alter ego of Jürgen von Manger, knew quite well, overtures exercise an important function in the opera: ‘They begin, you see, right off with the curtain and start by playing all the melodies in a row, everything that happens to come up later. But this is just to give you the chance to familiarize yourself with the music. And of course it’s important … so that later on you don’t get such a big shock’. The orchestral overtures brought together on the present recording make the listener eager to hear each of the particular works following them. Even those who do not recognize the fine details of their design will enjoy the inexhaustible wealth of their melodies, the irresistible rhythms and lyricisms, and the skilled details of their instrumentation. In their entirety the works on this CD invite us to approach Jacques Offenbach’s sumptuous oeuvre by way of unknown paths on the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of his birth – without having to worry about ‘later getting such a big shock’.

Here is a refreshing recording, offering a selection of a dozen of Offenbach’s overtures, carefully omitting some of his most famous pieces to give the listener a pleasant feeling of discovery with regard to an otherwise well-known and recorded composer. Who could pretend to know Les Bavards, Les Bergers, Monsieur et Madame Denis or Le Roi Carotte. Titles that invariably highlight the prolixity of the bourgeois entertainer that was Jacques Offenbach.

Composed once the artist had finished the overall work, all these pieces can be assimilated to “potpourri overtures”. They borrow and combine the themes later developed by the singers, which serve as a refrain for the listener. Very few composers escaped the rule, with the notable exceptions of Mozart whose overtures are most often pieces in their own right, and Beethoven who, after composing three overtures for his only opera piece, wrote the one for Fidelio, which didn’t prefigure any of the themes to come.

After the social satire characterised by a series of works incorporating the current context and jeering at politics and morals, Offenbach had to shift his focus following the fall of the Second French Empire, and opted to write fantasies and comic operas, up until his latest masterpieces. This album offers a panorama of Offenbach’s many styles, juxtaposing plagiarism, parody, the spirit of dance, and an innate sense of melody.

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