Seattle Symphony Presents Dutilleux’s L’arbre des songes

The Seattle Symphony’s first performances of Henri Dutilleux’s L’arbre des songes (The Tree of Dreams), featuring violinist Renaud Capuçon, highlights the first month of Ludovic Morlot’s inaugural season as music director. A pre-concert, one-hour talk “Henri Dutilleux: An Introduction,” is presented by Gavin Borchert, Seattle Weekly editor and arts writer. Originally commissioned by Radio France, L’arbre des songes is a four-movement, 25-minute work, and is dedicated to Isaac Stern who premiered it in 1985, with Lorin Maazel leading the Orchestre National de France. There are four performances in Seattle, September 22 through 25. L’Arbre de songes was inspired by Dutilleux’s admiration of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings. He explains:

…it has seemed to [me] that the intense pulsation that is the life of van Gogh's canvases, the sense of space that dominates them, the trembling quality of the material, and, above all, the effect of quasi-cosmic swirling the paintings give off, could indeed have their counterparts in sound.

Trying to write for a great soloist without making sacrifices to pure virtuosity, and the problem of bringing out the solo instrument while trying to get away from classical and romantic patterns, make the modern composer's task rather difficult. There is a convention in the concerto genre which puts the composer in a slightly ambiguous position. Even with a close study of Paganini's Capriccios…and [many other] scores, I personally still felt incapable of writing a bravura piece…[But,] all in all, the piece grows somewhat like a tree, for the constant multiplication and renewal of its branches is the lyrical essence of the tree. This symbolic image, as well as the notion of a seasonal cycle, inspired my choice of L'Arbre des songes as the title of the piece.

The work is performed alongside Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, "Eroica" as well as Frank Zappa’s Dupree’s Paradise, a truly omnivorous affair!

For information on the life and music of Frank Zappa, go to www.schott-music.com and www.zappa.com.

For more concert information, visit www.seattlesymphony.org.