![\"Helene](\"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/uncrHeleneVonRechenberg.jpg\")
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By ANDREW POWELL MUNICH \u2014 Composer first, virtuoso second. That, increasingly, is history\u2019s view of Marcel Dupr\u00e9<\/a>, the long-lived, globe-trotting Frenchman whose suite Le Chemin de la Croix<\/i> received a fluent and technically assured performance on Palm Sunday (April 13) from Munich organist Helene von Rechenberg<\/a>.<\/p>\n The hour-long score follows the sequence of fourteen Stations standard in the Roman Church since the 17th century and widely depicted in the arts, from the sentencing of Jesus to his entombment. Their scriptural basis is partial. Dupr\u00e9 quickly establishes color and emotion in each piece. Encounters with Simon of Cyrene and Veronica summon dreaminess, unreality. The 3rd, 7th and 9th Stations, when Jesus falls, form a plodding dark thread that is never literal; J\u00e9sus tombe pour la troisi\u00e8me fois<\/i>, a march, swirls turbulently.<\/p>\n It was a February 1932 Brussels Conservatory reading of Paul Claudel<\/a>\u2019s 1911 versets<\/i> of the same title that led to Dupr\u00e9\u2019s work, his Opus 29, initially \u201cimprovisations\u201d for that event. In finished form, contrarily, the absence of words probably heightens the composition\u2019s eloquence, and Graham Steed has suggested<\/a> Dupr\u00e9\u2019s inspiration was essentially visual. Liszt\u2019s vocal and more concise Via Crucis<\/i> of 1879 offers contrast, not always in Liszt\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n As played by Rechenberg on the excellent Sandtner organ<\/a> at St Joseph\u2019s Church in Tutzing, south of here on Lake Starnberg, the opening and closing pieces had a roused, tense profile, buttressing the suite: J\u00e9sus est condamn\u00e9 \u00e0 \u00eatre crucifi\u00e9<\/i> an expression of outrage framed by slow, halting sections; and Le corps de J\u00e9sus est mis au tombeau<\/i>, the longest piece at about seven minutes, a progression from noble simplicity through quiet percussive measures to a rising, bright, quiet close. Trained in Freiburg and with Michael Radulescu<\/a> in Vienna, Rechenberg consistently found satisfying weight and shape for phrases, in music that is less dense than much of her repertory.<\/p>\n Dupr\u00e9 himself performed Le Chemin de la Croix<\/i> yearly at Saint-Sulpice<\/a> in Paris, where he was director of music until his death, at 85, in 1971. The work has since gained a following through recordings<\/a> and is played during Lent on both sides of the Atlantic, although its length and the need for completeness preclude a routine place on recital programs. It is related in subject matter to Dupr\u00e9\u2019s four-movement Symphonie-Passion<\/i>, notated in 1924 as Opus 23 but improvised three years earlier on Macy\u2019s 28,000-pipe organ<\/a> in Philadelphia. The virtuoso gave close to 300 recitals in the United States.<\/p>\n Photo \u00a9 unknown<\/p>\n Related posts:
Published: May 22, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nWith Viotti, MRO Looks Back<\/a><\/p>\n