Edmond Dede - Mon Pauvre Cœur; Françoise Et Tortillard; Méphisto Masqué; Chicago

Edmond DEDE (1827-1901)

Chicago (For Orchestra)

Tond Les Chiens, Coup' Les Chats

Mirliton Fin De Siècle

Rêverie Champêtre

En Chasse

Composed By – Eugène Dédé

Orchestrated By – Edmond Dédé

Méphisto Masqué (For Solo Piano)

Battez Aux Champs

El Pronunciamento

Cora La Bordelaise

Mon Pauvre Cœur

Chicago (For Solo Piano)

Mon Sous Off!

Françoise Et Tortillard

   Ouverture 

Rondeau

Duo

   Quadrille Et Galop Final

Mon Sous Off!cier

Méphisto Masqué (For Orchestra)

Hot Springs Music Festival

Richard Rosenberg

Recorded 3-12 June, 1999 at the First Christian Church, Hot Springs National Park (tracks 2, 6-16) 

and Horner Hall, Hot Springs Civic & Convention Center (1, 3-5, 17-18).

Reviews:

One of the so-called Creole Romantic musical dynasties of New Orleans, the Dédé family including father Edmond and son Edouard – were among the most noted of the city’s nineteenth-century free black community. Along with another father/son pair named Lambert, these pioneering African-American composers helped to develop the cross-cultural musical language that served as a link between European concert music, ragtime and jazz.

The alternately Gallic and Italianate Mon pauvre cœur (1852) was Edmond Dédé’s first local success and the earliest piece by a black person to be published in New Orleans. The zany Françoise et Tortillard (1877), dating from his Bordeaux years, is a lightning-fast comedy, while the orchestral Chicago Välse (1891) dates from Edmond’s later years in Paris and is by turns brassy and stentorian, dreamy and sentimental. The composer often maintains a certain dignity even in the midst of frivolity, an example being Méphisto masqué, a polka with a buzzing ensemble of mirlitons, or French kazoos.

__________________________

"Edmond Dédé (1827-1901) was one of a select group of 'free black' composers who left the United States shortly before the Civil War to study and work in Paris. He spent most of his time in Bordeaux as director of the theater orchestra, which allowed him ample time to compose dances, songs, string quartets, and larger works. This music was virtually unknown in America until it was revived by Richard Rosenberg and his Hot Springs Festival performers in the 1990s. Rosenberg reconstructed instrumental parts for the orchestra pieces and conducts these vigorously, if a bit woodenly. The best selections on the CD are those for solo piano, especially a waltz called 'Chicago', and the 'Méphisto masqué'. The old-fashioned, almost corny lilt of these works is well captured by pianists Gary Hammond and Mary Scott Spry."

Classics Today