Roussel’s First Symphony, subtitled “The Poem of the Forest”, is so seldom played or recorded that it’s faint praise to hail this newcomer as the best version available. As with Christoph Eschenbach’s excellent version of the Second Symphony, he takes the music very seriously, you might say Germanically, producing a third-movement “Summer Evening” of exceptional depth and gravity. While some listeners might miss a bit of the traditional impressionistic lightness in the concluding “Fauns and Dryads”, this is certainly a legitimate way to play the music, a fact that applies even more forcefully to the compactly argued Fourth Symphony. While memories of conductors such as Charles Munch aren’t erased in this performance of the latter work, Eschenbach’s trenchant reading alongside the expert playing of the Orchestre de Paris upholds Roussel’s claim as France’s finest 20th-century symphonist. Very good sonics complete the picture. [8/13/2007]
