Henri Dutilleux: Music, Mystery and Memory. Conversations with Claude Glayman (review)

Abstract

Henri Dutilleux: Music, Mystery and Memory. Conversations with Claude dayman. Trans, by Roger Nichols. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003. [vi, 158 p. ISBN 0-7546-0899-9. $69.96.] Bibliography, works list, discography, index of names. Now recognized as one of the great composers of his generation, Henri Dutilleux is well known not only for his individualism and independence of position, but for his discretion and reserve in matters concerning his life and music. All the more fascinating, therefore, for the composer to have at last aired many of his personal views concerning his family background, artistic development, training, and career in the form of conversations with the French writer and journalist Claude dayman. During the course of wide-ranging and penetrating interviews, Dutilleux reveals much about his approach to composition and the influences on his musical style. He discusses his music from the period of the Piano Sonata to The Shadows of Time and sheds tantalising light on future compositional plans, one of which has since come to fruition (Sur le meme accord for violin and orchestra, 2001-2002, written for Anne-Sophie Mutter). The conversations give many valuable insights into the subtle complexities of French musical life, its personalities and institutions, throughout the second half of the twentieth century and create contexts for the activities of a great many of his contemporaries, including the younger generation. Dutilleux also touches on his period in Italy on the eve of World War II and comments on life in France from the German Occupation to the Liberation. Reflecting the internationalism of his career, Dutilleux discusses his involvements outside France; most notably his time spent in the United States, as well as visits to the former Soviet Union, Poland (at the time of the first Warsaw Autumn Festival), and other former Eastern Block countries. Throughout, the conversations illustrate Dutilleux's characteristic generosity in respect of his views about other composers and almost unreserved admiration for a select few. Appearing in English translation for the first time, these conversations emerged in two phases. The original French edition, containing dayman's interviews with Dutilleux in 1992, was published as Henri Dutilleux: Mystere et memoire du son by Belfond (Paris, 1993) as part of their well established series of conversations with a wide range of distinguished musical, artistic and literary figures of the twentieth century. That Dutilleux's conversations were published as part of this series is indicative of the esteem in which he is held in France: Belfond's series includes Claude Rostand's conversations with Darius Milhaud (1952), Georges Charbonnier's conversations with Edgard Varese (1970) Pierre Bougeade's with Man Ray (1972), Alain Bosquet's with Salvador Dali (1983), Claude Samuel's with Olivier Messiaen (1986), and Pascal Vrebos' with Henry Miller (1991), as well as many others. Further discussions took place between dayman and Dutilleux in 1996; an indication perhaps of the composer's notorious predilection for detailed revision, as well as Glayman's admirable desire to commemorate Dutilleux's eightieth birthday. The complete interviews were published in a revised edition under the original title by Actes Sud in 1997, the later interviews comprising the new second section of the volume. (Each section in the 1997 edition is dated.) The revised edition provides the text for Roger Nichols' translation. Although an oversight has resulted in the omission of the date for the second section in the English edition, the text itself clarifies chronology. Both French editions include some useful appendices (list of works, bibliography and discography) as well as an indispensable index of names. The table of contents draws attention to particular issues and themes, as well as major works, and highlights aspects of the composer's periodization. (The revised French edition presents the table of contents more conveniently at the front of the volume, as is now increasingly the practice in France. …