1951: THE COMPOSITION OF YET ANOTHER SYMPHONY. Debusy, disabused, had already condemned these studied and rigid exercises Since Beethoven the futility of the symphony has been proven. What they was the use of the efforts of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Mahler and, closer to our own time in France, of Roussel, Honegger, Milhaud? Three years before Messiaen had just finished writing the ten movements of his Turangalila Symphony. Why was Dutilleux, who had just found his way with a piano sonata (a sonata!) not apprehensive of the symphony? Apart from the form, how is one to compose for a large orchestra? By returning to polyphony, by renouncing the orchestral magma, by dividing up, to an extreme degree,, the parts of each pulpit (especially the strings), I remain convinced, Dutilleux wrote, that one can compose symphonic works (I do not say symphonies) which are unified like those of the past and open like those of the present. We have here a magnificent example.
Unity: four movements, a main theme for each, varied 35 times in the Pssacaille (Brahms, too, had used this process of variations in the finale of his 4th Symphony), 5 times in the finale (Beethoven, finale of the Eroica); a classical orchestra formation, the winds divided into three, with, however, a rich percussion section dominated by keyboard instruments (xylophone, vibraphone, glockenspiel, celesta, piano); frank, even modal tonality; allusive quotations of motifs running through the whole work, fermenting it. By means of a kind of symmetry deliberately created by the composer, the music emerges from the shade in the first measures and plunges back into it in the very last ones. Thus a transition is established between the real and the imaginary worlds. It is a little like the birth and the unfolding of a dream. (Dutilleux)
Openness: four movements, ostinato of the passacaglia, moto perpetuo of the scherzo suspended linearity of the intermezzo, explosive dynamics of the finale. The treatment of the orchestra in small instrumental groups which contrast with the orchestral mass, the play of sound colours and densities. One has the impression of a work that is evolving, moving forward. No development of themes A and B, but a musical discourse that is both logical and free, an equilibrium of contraries, dynamics of differences, incessant renewal of the variations. Metabolism.
Dutilleuxs First Symphony was first performed at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris on 7 June 1951 by the Orchestre National de la Radio conducted by Roger Desormière.
Jean-Yves Bras
The third movement of Dutilleux Symphonie No. 1, in this performance by the Orchestre National de Lyon conducted by Serge Baudo, constituted the score for Maurice Pialats film Sous le Soleil de Satan starring Sandrine Bonnaire and Gérard Depardieu. We highly recommend this film.