Chausson never achieved the inner freedom that carried his friend to the heights. And it was Debussy, not Chausson, who would change the face of French music. In effect, he spent too much energy questioning his abilities.The most important person to take Chausson to task over this was Debussy. But composition was a struggle, partly because, having come late to it, he feared he lacked technique; and partly because he feared, for the same reason, that others would view him as a dilettante.
"For the era he was writing in, he uses quite a heavy hand," she says. "The Po? de l'amour et de la mer is intensely romantic, with lush, rich orchestral writing But that's one of the things I love about it It's so evocative, yet so elusive. Chausson creates extraordinary rolling waves of music to depict the sea, and the final section, 'Le temps de lilas', is amazing, full of despair. And the Po? de l'amour et de la mer, a half-hour monologue for mezzo-soprano and orchestra, recorded by the American singer Susan Graham on Warner Classics, is winning rave reviews. It's music of silken, indigo gorgeousness infused with a fin-de-si?e languor characteristic of Chausson's sensitive and doom-laden soundworld.Graham suggests that Chausson's heady musical language could have contributed to his neglect in the context of his times, when the likes of Faur?nd Debussy were composing with relative emotional restraint and textural transparency. Eventually, having recognised composition as his true vocation, he joined the circle of young composers studying with C?r Franck, the Belgian-born maverick whose mysterious yet sensual language pervades Chausson's music.Chausson possessed the perfectionism of a Ravel, the melodic lusciousness of a Faur?nd an idealistic, deeply inquiring mind. It's heart-rending."The son of a contractor who was involved in building Haussmann's great Paris boulevards, Chausson was coerced by his deeply respectable parents into studying law, despite his artistic aspirations.
His other pieces are hardly played.There are signs, however, of a revival: Chausson's sole opera, Le roi Arthus, his greatest work, is receiving a new recording by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Leon Botstein, for release in July. Violinists have taken his marvellous miniature concerto, the Po?, to their hearts - but it is regarded as his only work to achieve real immortality. His finest piece of chamber music, the "Concert" for violin, piano and string quartet, has a passionate following, but remains a rarity on the concert platform; the same is true of his songs. He was 44, and had only begun to attain a measure of the artistic fulfilment he craved.
