Elsa Barraine: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2, Song-Koï, Les Tziganes

Elsa Barraine, a notable and politically intrepid figure in her lifetime (1910-1999), is a composer whose distinctive voice is being heard again. A pupil of Paul Dukas at the Paris Conservatoire, and a fellow student of Olivier Messiaen, at the age of 19 she won the highly prestigious Prix de Rome with a cantata on the theme of Joan of Arc. During her long career she held several public posts in French music and spent more than 20 years as a professor, but she was also a composer of strong left-wing convictions and prominent in the Resistance during the Occupation years of World War Two.  

Under its music director Cristian Măcelaru, the Orchestre national de France performs four works by Barraine: the Symphony No 1, completed in Italy in 1931; the compact, but powerful Symphony No 2, composed in 1938 and ominously subtitled ‘Voïna’, the French transliteration of the Russian word for ‘war’; Song-Koï (Le Fleuve rouge) – an eight-movement evocation of the Red River which flows through Vietnam, composed in 1945, the year Vietnam declared its independence from France, and, dating from 1959, Les Tziganes, which, as its name implies, takes inspiration from gypsy culture. Rooted in tonality, Barraine’s music is confidently and soberly crafted, its orchestral palette both clearly defined and subtly shaded as it reflects its times and the composer’s philosophical and spiritual concerns.