リタ・シュトロール: 作品集 Vol.1

ワーグナーと象徴主義の両方に傾倒した
リタ・シュトロール作品集
貴重な歌曲も収録

リタ・シュトロール作品集。リタは、軍人の父と、絵と音楽の才能に恵まれた母のもとに生まれます。母による音楽の手ほどきを受けた後、パリの音楽院に13歳で入学、フェリクス・ル・クーペのクラスに入ります(シャミナードも彼の門下)。学校には真面目に通わなかったという記録もありますが、それでも学校からは才能を認められてはいました。1888年に結婚、出産しながらも、音楽(作曲)をやめることはありませんでした。ワーグナーと象徴主義の両方に傾倒し、壮大な叙事詩や交響曲といった大規模な作品も作りました。彼女の歌曲は、とくにめずらしく、貴重な録音の登場です。
キングインターナショナル

The rediscovery of music by female composers came a bit later to France than it did to Britain or the U.S., but the new label La Boite a Pepites is changing that with a series of generous releases illustrated by nifty drawings of the composers. The label does a real service here with this double-album revival of vocal music by Rita Strohl (songs, plus a fascinating set for narrator and piano), who lived from 1865 to 1941. It is hard to understand the neglect of her music, which was praised by Henri Duparc and programmed by Pablo Casals in its own time. In these songs, it is a bit hard to hear the "compositrice de la demesure" ("composer of excess") promised by the albums subtitle; perhaps that is still to come in the labels series, but Strohl did expand upon her models -- Franck, with some Wagner and Debussy -- in striking ways. Perhaps the best-known Strohl work so far is the uniquely dramatic and programmatic cello sonata called Titus et Berenice, presumably still to come from La Boite a Pepites. However, the songs here are hefty in their ambition and reach, sounding in no way derivative of anybody else. Strohl offers her own set of Pierre Louys lesbian Songs of Bilitis that could easily be programmed with Debussys set of three. The second disc in the set is devoted mostly to settings of Baudelaire and other poets; the two cycles, written in 1891 and 1894, would have been received as entirely contemporary in their time. Most interesting of all is the set of narrations, titled Quand la flute de Pan; they have Symbolist texts by the little-known Marie de Courpon, who was also a composer, and the relationship between text and music is fluid. The performances are by major artists, including the soprano Elsa Dreisig and baritone Stephane Degout, which bodes well for the future of a series that has started promisingly indeed. ~ James Manheim