Bloch: Hiver-Printemps; Poèmes d’Automne; In the Night; Deux Psaumes; Psaume 22.
Mireille Delunsch, soprano; Brigitte Balleys, mezzo-soprano; Vincent Le Texier, baritone; Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg; David Shallon, conductor.
Timpani 1C1052.
Ernest Bloch’s reputation rests precariously—too precariously—on Schelomo and perhaps the Violin Concerto. Everything else feels provisional in the catalog, subject to withdrawal without notice. Which is absurd, really, given the sheer abundance of what he wrote.
This Timpani disc does something useful: it gathers early works, mostly, that let us hear Bloch before he fully inhabited his “Jewish” voice. Hiver-Printemps from 1905 shows a young composer still working through his Debussy—the winter movement especially, with its hushed string textures and that peculiar sense of landscape glimpsed through falling snow. Not particularly original, but beautifully made. The spring section has a pastoral simplicity that verges on the naive; I kept thinking of Frank Bridge, oddly enough, though Bridge’s sensibility was gentler.
The Poèmes d’Automne are more substantial. Four songs for mezzo and orchestra from 1906, setting autumnal texts with the kind of chromatic density that suggests late Fauré crossed with early Schoenberg—before Schoenberg became Schoenberg, if you follow me. Brigitte Balleys sings with considerable dramatic weight, perhaps too much vibrato for some tastes, but she understands the emotional trajectory. The orchestration is thick, almost overgrown, which suits the subject matter even if it occasionally obscures the vocal line.
In the Night comes much later—1922, originally for violin and piano, here in Bloch’s own orchestration. It’s a nocturne that owes something to Debussy’s La mer, those mysterious middle sections where the sea seems to breathe in darkness. Shallon and the Luxembourg orchestra handle it with appropriate restraint, though I wanted more color in the winds.
The psalm settings are where Bloch’s mature voice emerges. The Deux Psaumes (Psalms 114 and 137) and the separate Psaume 22 show him engaging directly with Hebrew texts and Jewish liturgical Affekt—that characteristic melismatic wail, the brass fanfares suggesting ancient ritual. Delunsch and Le Texier both sing with operatic heft; Le Texier’s baritone spreads a bit under pressure, but he brings genuine fervor to Psalm 22. The final bars, with their brassy proclamation, remind you that Bloch could write for orchestra with real authority when he wanted to.
David Shallon conducts with evident sympathy for this music, though the Luxembourg orchestra doesn’t have the sheer sonic luxury of, say, Cleveland or Chicago. No matter—the performances are committed, the engineering clean, and Harry Halbreich’s notes are genuinely informative.
This disc won’t dislodge Schelomo from its precarious perch, but it does something more valuable: it suggests the range and seriousness of Bloch’s achievement beyond the handful of works we think we know. Worth hearing, worth having.
