Norbert Moret: "En rêve". Concerto for violin and chamber orchestra (1988)
Norbert Moret
born 20 Nov. 1921 in Ménières, Switzerland
died 17 Nov. 1998 in Fribourg
First performance:
9 Sep. 1988 in Ascona by Anne-Sophie Mutter
CD recording:
Anne-Sophie Mutter 1991
Born in 1921 and raised in a rural environment in the canton of Fribourg (Switzerland), Norbert Moret discovered music-making on the piano and organ during his college years. He began
studying composition at the Fribourg Conservatory. After the Second World War, when the borders were open again, he escaped the then somewhat narrow intellectual climate of Fribourg and studied
in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and René Leibowitz. One of his fellow students was Pierre Boulez, and he completed his studies with Arthur Honegger. To support his family, he then had to return to
Switzerland and became a teacher of singing and French. And finally a music teacher at the cantonal teachers' seminar. For a long time, he composed only for himself, without presenting his music
to the outside world, on the one hand because there was little understanding for his contemporary compositions in the music circles of Fribourg, and on the other hand, as he said himself, he was
too shy to go public with his compositions. It was not until 1974 that he was discovered as an important Swiss composer at the Swiss Tonkünstlerfest in German-speaking Switzerland and Paul Sacher
took notice of him. His music is considered to be tonally sensual and analytically very well thought-out: although structurally complex in composition (Moret originally comes from
twelve-tone music, but then goes his own compositional way), his works are atmospherically comprehensible even to a non-specialist audience. Paul Sacher promoted Norbert Moret as a composer and
arranged several commissions for him. He wrote a cello concerto for Slava Rostropovitch and in 1988 for the Settimane musicali Ascona and for Anne-Sophie Mutter a violin concerto with the
aural-fantasy inspiring title "En rêve". The title headings of this reverie are vivid, but his music is harmonically, rhythmically, formally, instrumentally refined throughout all the movements.
The concerto has also been recorded on CD with Ann-Sophie Mutter and Seiji Ozawa. "En rêve" would deserve to be known among younger violinists and beyond.
Listen here!
Movement 1 Lumière vaporeuse
Movement 2 Dialogue avec l'Étoile
Movement 3 Azur fascinant (Sérénade tessinoise)
I. Lumiere vaporeuse
"En rêve" begins with the first traces of sound, hints of melody and bright celesta arpeggios that hang lightly in the air. Very ethereal mood, the violin inserts itself into this beginning with
a long-drawn C, creating a brief fright in the orchestra. Then this mood again, floating in space like plays of light or floating wisps of mist (lumiere vaporeuse is the name of the movement!),
the violin tries melodic things and plays harmonics that fit into this mood.
Then, however, a kind of dark melody emerges in the violin for the first time, but it quickly dies away, the orchestra contributes quiet and then again violently erupting melodic set pieces... A
continuous back and forth of whirring sounds, figures, violent orchestral outbursts begins, the violin is also carried along, but again and again whirls away into shimmering quiet, bright and
transparent atmospheres, as if painted on bright glass, or like cones of light that attract whirring mosquitoes (as Moret himself once described it). The violin and various orchestral instruments
and their combination react to each other again and again, pizzicatos and glissandi of the violin mix with celesta sounds, then the violin rises to light heights towards the end, soft timpani
beats, everything sinks into silence, the strings play the first dark violin melody again in a rapturous way and conclude this movement, which seems very free formally between these melodies, in
a melodic way.
II. Dialogue avec l’Etoile
An elongated note of D on the violin, played solo, opens a solitary cadenza on the violin, and rises to F-sharp. The D major third and thirds in general play a determining role in this movement and could signify the impressive radiance of a star beloved by Moret, with which the composer (the key of F major stands for this) enters into a mystical dialogue. The sound of an accompanying vibraphone makes this dialogue seem even more dreamlike. A second phase of this dialogue begins with the gentle, almost monotonous entry of the orchestra, which also rises to the third and the triad; the dialogue develops further and opens up. A third section of this dialogue becomes more elemental, violin and drum and low strings confront each other fiercely. Only slowly does a calmer phase re-emerge, quiet col legno of the strings. The movement ends with the quiet thirds glow of this "Etoile" in the solo violin.
III. Azur fascinant - Sérénade tessinoise
A fanfare opens a final movement moved by much percussion, a horn motif stands out, then the violin joins in with a dance-like double-stop theme of its own. Once again, thirds recall the second movement, but various fine percussion instruments immediately reopen a dreamlike dialogue with the violin; in this concerto, the celesta in particular represents a kind of cosmic harmony of spheres in azure blue. The dreamlike mood remains, the violin can let its magic play until the violin's drone solo theme once again sweeps us away into a dance, this time accompanied by the timpani. Echoes of folklore emerge, short melodic motifs pass as if in a dream. At the end, the violin's drone thirds emerge again, the orchestra joins in once more with its opening fanfare, the violin seconds with its ever wilder double stops, and in a short coda, violin and orchestra rise to a thrilling ecstasy of sound.