Betsy Jolas - D'un Opéra de Voyage

Born in 1926, French contemporary music composer Betsy Jolas was a Domaine Musical associate during the 1960s and her first compositions were interpreted by Boulez’s Orchestre du Domaine Musical – see official website–, yet she remained an independent composer and did not adhere strictly to the Serialist dogma. Recorded in 1969 by the Domaine Musical conducted by Gilbert Amy, this disc was Betsy Jolas’ first record release, published in the highly collectible Impact de la Musique Contemporaine collection of 7inch singles, appearing on Disques Adès between 1969 and 1974 (see gallery and discography here). Adès was Pierre Boulez’s record company during the 1960s and published his Schoenberg Pierrot Lunaire LP in 1962 and the Marteau Sans Maître LP in 1964.

♫ Composed for a small orchestra of 22 instruments, D’un Opéra de Voyage was premiered in 1967 at the Festival de Royan by the Orchestre du Domaine Musical conducted by Michael Gielen. It belongs to a series of orchestral and chamber music works Jolas calls “opera” (also including D’un opéra de Poupée en Sept Musiques and Frauenleben, both 1982) despite the absence of singer. The imaginative instrumentation of D’un Opéra de Voyage recalls the Stravinski of Renard or L’Histoire du Soldat, in part due to the use of isolated percussion and reeds, while hints of Klangfarbenmelodie point to the influence of Webern on mid-century European composers.

D’un Opéra De Voyage (side 1+2) (9:40)

7in single released by Disques Adès, France, between 1969 and 1974

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