Théodore Dubois - Piano Concerto No.2, Vanessa Wagner (piano Erard of 1874), Les Siècles (orchestra), François-Xavier Roth (conductor); live recording on the historical instruments
I. Allegro - 00:00
II. Adagio (Con Sentimento Profondissimo) - 10:55
III. Allegro Vivo, Scherzando - 15:24
IV. Con Molta Fantasia - 17:55
Clément François Théodore Dubois (24 August 1837 - 11 June 1924) was a French composer, organist, and music teacher.
After study at the Paris Conservatoire, Dubois won France's premier musical prize, the Prix de Rome, in 1861. He became an organist and choirmaster at several well-known churches in Paris, and at the same time was a professor at the Conservatoire, teaching harmony from 1871 to 1891 and composition from 1891 to 1896, when he succeeded Ambroise Thomas as the Conservatoire's director. He continued his predecessor's strictly conservative curriculum and was forced to retire early after a scandal erupted over the faculty's attempt to rig the Prix de Rome competition to prevent the modernist Maurice Ravel from winning.
After his retirement from the Conservatoire, Dubois remained a familiar figure in Parisian musical circles. He was president of the association of Conservatoire alumni, and presided at its annual award ceremony. Until his final years he remained vigorous. The death of his wife in 1923 was a blow from which he did not recover, and he died at his Paris home, after a short illness, on 11 June 1924, aged 86
Dubois was an consciencious musician, and considered to be representative of the classical school. While remaining faithful to his ideals of clarity and respect for tradition, he was receptive to the advanced ideas of his time. In his private capacity, Dubois was less reactionary than in the academic régime over which he presided. When Wagner's Parsifal had its belated Parisian premiere in 1914, Dubois said to his colleague Georges Hüe that no music more beautiful had ever been written. Privately he was fascinated by Debussy's music, with its "subtiles harmonies et les précieux raffinements" - subtle harmonies and precious refinements.
Eclectic in its inspiration, his œuvre is vast and varied, approaching every genre and identifying as much with César Franck and Schumann as with Brahms or Saint-Saëns, but in his extremely varied catalogue of works
Dubois showed no special enthusiasm for the concerto, probably because he was not himself a virtuoso of the front rank (although he was a genuinely talented organist).
“‘Very modern in style’ a contemporary critic opined of the Piano Concerto No.2 of 1897. To me, though, it’s rather Schumannesque in places but with hints too of Chopin and even Grieg with the piano often offering a decorative gloss on things. The orchestral accompaniment is, also, much more varied, some of it very lovely. The solo writing is not especially virtuosic per se, and that’s to its advantage. The slow movement is quietly grave, opened by the piano, taken up by the orchestra, and subsequently embellished by the piano. The vital, energetic scherzo must owe a debt to Saint-Saëns, even taking on a habañera contour at one point. The finale, in the solo cadenza that launches it, strikes me as something of a Franck crib in places, though the recapitulation of earlier thematic material is neatly done and again the spirit of Saint-Saëns continues to haunt the work, usefully dampening the somewhat half-hearted fugal passage. Academism is an ever-present worry with Dubois but here it’s lightly conceived.” (by Jonathan Woolf)