Dupont: La maison dans les dunes

Taccogna, Giuseppe

PCL 10234

Gabriel Dupont (1878 -1914) died prematurely from tuberculosis, and perhaps one reason why he never attained the fame of his contemporaries like Ravel, Debussy and Faurè was his short life, signed by his illness and the large time spent in recovering in convalescent homes, alienated from the intellectual and artistic inspiration of the capital. On the other hand, this forced isolation allowed the composer to seek his own style and musical personality.

Despite his unfortune life, in just over a decade he managed to realize some highly original works. In his two piano suites Gabriel Dupont proves to be a representative of the Belle Époque: his music, hard to define, lies between romanticism and impressionism with strong connections to symbolism.

Dupont’s last piano cycle, La maison dans les dunes, was composed in 1908-9. At this point in his life, Dupont was spending the winters at Arcachon and the summers in Le Vésinet. He quotes a line by Friedrich Nietzsche at the head of the score: ‘Alone with the clear sky and the open sea.’ The cycle invokes images of a house in the dunes where a person lives alone, accompanied by the rhythms of the sea, the morning light, the pines rustling in the evening breeze, the lapping waves at night, sails on the water, and the ceaseless play of light on water. Solitude need not be associated exclusively with melancholy, and in fact Dupont felt a new vitality during the period of the cycle’s composition. The light of health and hope accordingly infuses La maison dans les dunes, which is not marked by the shadow of mortality hanging over the earlier Les heures dolentes. The music is dramatic, playful, agitated, and touching, and Dupont uses richly chromatic harmony to paint impressionistic and symbolic depictions of sailboats, the changing weather, the sky, the breeze blowing through the trees, and the sunlight.

Played with great feeling for atmosphere by Italian pianist Giuseppe Taccogna, who earlier successfully recorded “Les heures dolentes” for Piano Classics.

CD

2.12.2024

5029365102346