François-Xavier Roth: My Top Five
French conductor François-Xavier Roth shares the music and recordings that inspired him in an exclusive IDAGIO playlist.
Read more…Bach: Magnificat BWV 243 – English Baroque Soloists, Monteverdi Choir, Sir John Eliot Gardiner
This was a very important recording for me, and as a teenager I saw it as a very exciting moment in the rediscovery of Baroque music on period instruments. For sure that rediscovery started earlier – we are talking now about the '80s here – but there was the quality of the recording on CD here, and the fact that the music-making was not experimental any more: it was 'confirmed'. Suddenly I had this powerful image of Bach's music with lots of joy, lots of simple human emotions. I grew up with recordings like Karajan and Karl Richter: strict and distanced. With this recording I saw a side of Bach that was totally new to me. Suddenly playing on period instruments, the idea of trying to rediscover the music-making of the time, made sense to me.
Boulez: Répons – Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre Boulez
I remember hearing this music live for the first time, and after that at home with the CD. It's an amazing work, with Pierre Boulez as a conductor and as a composer. I never imagined that music could go into these areas; it was like a firework, the most avant-garde music written at the time. I didn't know then that I would become a conductor – it was a hidden dream – but I wanted to do this piece somehow, either to play as a flautist in the ensemble or to conduct it. I've had the chance to conduct it many times since, and each time I start rehearsals I think back to the old days of hearing this CD.
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2 – Orchestre de Paris, Daniel Barenboim
This recording (on an album with the 'Boléro' and 'Pavane') was very important to me as a student. I was a flautist, and 'Daphnis et Chloé' is a huge solo part, something that projects the instrument in such an erotic way, with a new expressive dimension. On this recording the Orchestre de Paris plays beautifully under Daniel's baton, but especially the principal flute, Michel Debost – somebody who was very important and later also happened to become my father in law. For some years now I've focused on this music with my orchestra, Les siècles. But this recording was very important for me, and it's still important to hear the fantastic colours this orchestra produced in this music.
Bruckner: Symphony No. 6 in A major – Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Eugen Jochum
Bruckner was music that for me, as a young musician, was totally unknown: it was not performed in Paris when I was 12 or 13 and was still something quite obscure. This was enigmatic music, and very long for French people! And through Jochum's recordings – not concerts – I started to be magnetically attracted to it. It's something that also had consequences years after that. As a flautist I didn't play Bruckner at all, but as a conductor it became something central to my programming. So this was very important, and I would say it represents the magic of recordings, of the way you can suddenly discover new things through them.
Varèse: Arcana – Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly
For the fifth choice? Varèse with the Concertgebouw and Riccardo Chailly. When I bought the CD I remember very clearly being shocked that the "Complete Works by Varèse" was only two or three CDs. So very compact works, and fascinating performances, also very full of life. It was a shock to hear that music by Varèse could be also so full of contrast, and not something very dry or overly precise. In a way this recording is very lyrical, as well as highly adventurous; and the playing of the Concertgebouw is still gorgeous and full of amazing colours. The music is so radical, and like every masterwork, or every great piece of revolutionary music, it still sounds like it was written yesterday.
Bonus choice – Schubert: String Quintet – Alban Berg Quartet, Heinrich Schiff
As a bonus choice: the Schubert Quintet with Heinrich Schiff and the Alban Berg Quartet. It's a recording I listened to so many times that the CD stopped working. It allowed me to discover something that was very far from my education – as woodwind players we don't necessarily have access to the masterpieces of string music. And through this recording, suddenly, I wanted to discover and be curious about the whole string quartet repertoire. And the Alban Berg? Heroes for me! A marvellous recording.