Chausson: Symphony in B flat major, Op. 20

“The performance is relaxed yet has a cumulative effect: one has a feeling of real calamity before the magician hurriedly returns at the end to put right the mischief his apprentice has wrought.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“Fournet is a marvellous advocate for Chausson's all-too-rarely heard Symphony.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2010 ****

“Jean Fournet’s new account...Is arguably the finest now on the market. Not only is it very well shaped, but the texture in the voluptuous slow movement is heard in excellent focus. Fournet paces all three movements well and gets sensitive results from his players” Penguin Guide (of Chausson)

“In the wrong hands both the Franck Symphony and its younger brother by Chausson can sound stiffjointed. Not here. Marek Janowski draws on all his operatic experience to make the melodic lines live and sing. Everything has shape and colour, but these frequent dark undertows are never allowed to wallow in sentimentality. Best of all is the way Janowski responds to the variety of harmonic tension in both works: the more chromatic a chord, the more space he tends to give it without ever obstructing the flow… they make a tremendous impact when required, balanced by warm-toned pianissimos. I have no doubt that the power and refinement of this recording should bring it a wide audience.” Roger Nichols (BBC Music Magazine Orchestral Choice Jan-07)

The review in the February 1996 edition of Gramophone commented: “… the Chausson receives … [a] warmly spontaneous-sounding performance … here the string quartet is given its full weight instead of being a mere addendum, and that owes much to the playing of the Ysaÿe Quartet … speeds tend to be broader … and the style more freely idiomatic, making this among the most persuasive of all the performances I have heard of a work which — despite the inevitable problems of lining up such an ensemble — is at last establishing its rightful place as a late romantic masterpiece, not least thanks to recordings.”

“There are at least two misconceptions to put right about Franck's arguably most gifted pupil.
The first, which this disc dispels admirably, is that the majority of Chausson's music, in the manner of his Poème, is endlessly melancholic or elegiac. The second, which the disc doesn't dispel quite so well, is that in his orchestral writing never managed to free itself from Wagner's embrace. Never entirely perhaps, but by the time the 43-year-old composer came to write his last orchestral piece, the nocturnal Soir de fête included here, his escape from Wagner was well under way, and who knows where it might have led, had it not been for his tragically early death the following year? The outer sections of Soir defête have something about them of 'the vibrating, dancing rhythms of the atmosphere' of Debussy's later Fêtes. The programme as a whole, the overall richness of the orchestral process – whether Wagnerian, Franckian, Straussian or Chaussonian – is well served by the full-bodied sound of Tortelier's BBC Philharmonic.
The Symphony, like Franck's, is cyclical, but not otherwise as indebted to the older composer as is often suggested.
There are none of Franck's organ-loft sonorities anywhere in this wonderfully variegated, open-air orchestration. This is the finest modern recording of the Symphony now available. Each movement is superbly built, and Chandos's recording is truly impressive although in the excerpts from Chausson's incidental music for The Tempest, the sound is perhaps a little bulky.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“while vintage versions retain a unique magic, this modern performance more than holds its own. Moreoever, it comes with some excellent rare orchestral works.” Penguin Guide, 2011 edition

“Jerôme Kaltenbach has a sure fix on chausson's impassioned eloquence, and the Nancy Orchestra responds glowingly.” Fanfare