This terrific disc presents yet another of those wonderful French ballets from the pre-World War II period, of which there seems to be an almost endless supply. Bric-à-Brac concerns the magical goings on in a flea market in a poor Paris neighborhood in which junk items on sale, including used gramophones, a picture of the goddess Diana, and an old violin, cast a glamorous spell on the drab inhabitants until the intervention of a priest puts a stop to the enchantment. The music is wonderful: witty, urbane, brilliantly scored, with plenty of jazzy solos for muted trumpet, clarinet, and saxophone. It sounds a lot like Gershwin in several places, a bit like Stravinsky in others, and ultimately offers 37 energy-packed minutes in which Alexandre Tansman’s invention never flags. The Bamberg Symphony also plays magnificently: there’s a lot of very fast, rhythmically tricky music here, and the orchestra under Israel Yinon’s expert guidance glides through the score as if it’s been familiar with this music for years.
The Fourth Symphony recalls Roussel (of the Second Symphony), and maybe Honegger, in combining a basically dissonant (but never outrageously so) idiom with clear-cut tunes anchored by distinct tonal centers. The central slow movement, for strings alone, has a nicely bittersweet quality, while the finale mixes contrapuntal passages with episodes in a more popular vein. Once again it’s very well performed and recorded. Tansman’s was a major voice in 20th century music, as his slowly growing discography has gradually revealed. This disc shows him at his considerable best.
