David Chaillou: Natures
Genuin Classics

A biographical note included in the booklet for David Chaillou's second monographic album describes the material created by the French composer, born in 1971 and an alumnus of the Conservatoire de Paris and Sorbonne University, as an original synthesis of French music (Grisey, Dutilleux, Debussy, Ravel) and post-minimalism. In truth, the latter is less audible within Chaillou's music, at least insofar as it's represented on this latest collection, than the former, with Grisey and secondarily Dutilleux (Messiaen too) the composers one might be most reminded of when listening to Natures.

Influences and echoes aside, the fifty-four-minute release is worthy of attention, not only for the music itself but for the fact that its ten pieces, all world premiere recordings, receive stellar treatments from a distinguished cast of musicians. That includes Finnish pianist Laura Mikkola (who recorded Chaillou's first monographic album, 2020's Légendes), Aron Quartett, the group's cellist Christophe Pantillon, and percussionists Morgan Laplace Mermoud and Pierre Tomassi. All boast impressive CVs, with the quartet's prize-winning box set of Arnold Schönberg's string quartet works, for example, regarded by some as one of the finest chamber music recordings of the previous century.

Changes of instrumentation occur throughout the recording, but it's held together by a unifying concept having to with the temporal trajectory of a single day. While it opens with Aron Quartett's wide-eyed rendering of Vita Nova, it concludes with the hushed stillness of Barque. In between are the events of an imagined day with all the variety that entails. When bird sounds (culled from the sound library of the Paris Natural History Museum) seep into the musical presentation, one visualizes the album's so-called “solitary walker” stepping outside to commune with nature. Generally speaking, however, Natures retreats from being too referential; instead, the Paris-based composer prefers to keep his material allusive, impressionistic, and amenable to interpretation, even when a title might point in a specific direction.

At sixteen minutes, Vita Nova (2021) casts a towering shadow, not only for its duration but for its titanic character. The work invites comparison to Arvo Pärt's Fratres for sharing its haunting quality and its insistence. Strings flutter, swoop, arc, and criss-cross aggressively throughout, though Chaillou judiciously counters high-intensity passages with comparatively peaceful ones. Aron Quartett delivers a scintillating performance that others would be hard pressed to match. Certainly any string quartet in search of a terrific piece to add to its concert repertoire need look no further than Chaillou's mesmerizing creation. In its other performance, an angst reminiscent of Shostakovich permeates Aron Quartett's impassioned reading of Gulf stream (1998).

Fittingly, Laura Mikkola, who studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki (as well as at the Curtis Institute of Music and Bloomington University in the United States), performs Au piano de Sibelius (2020), the first of many pieces on which she appears. Adding to its impact, Mikkola's wordless voice appears alongside the piano during the work's spectral centre, the music otherwise oceanic in its swells of rolling clusters. In Désert (2022), she plucks the instrument's strings and floods the background with an almost subliminal reverberation. Amidst those aforementioned bird twitters and calls, the pianist's sprinkles and the percussionists' accents conjure shadowy mystery in Forêt (2022). Playing both the inside and outside of the piano, Mikkola partners with Mermoud and Tomassi a second time for the closing meditation Barque (2022).

Similar to Mikkola, Pantillon makes repeated solo appearances, the searing introspective journey that is L'oiseau (2021) first, the alternately plaintive and feverish Solo (2018) second, and the pizzicati-dominated Hieroglyphs (2022) third. The authority of his attack and his impressive technical command and emotional expression make for riveting solo performances. In addition to Pantillon's artful bowing, an arsenal of techniques is utilized, from harmonics, tremolo, and double-stops to glissandos and percussive effects.

September 2024