Heinz Holliger - Koechlin: Les Heures persanes, Op. 65 (2006)

Hänssler Classic's Charles Koechlin: Les Heures Persanes is only the second recording made of Koechlin's impressive orchestral suite. Composed for the piano in 1919, Koechlin orchestrated all 16 movements of the set in a little less than two weeks in 1921. While Heinz Holliger may not have been the first to record the work -- Leif Segerstam beat him to the draw for Marco Polo in 1989 -- but Holliger was the first to perform it entirely with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in Berlin. This recording with Holliger directing the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR is a later recording, made in 2004.

The work itself is a highly appealing, low-key, and atmospheric suite that is vaguely evocative of a "Persian" aura initially inspired by romance novels. It does not resort to simulations of Arabic scales and it is highly transparent, though Koechlin's taste in harmonic and orchestral color is obviously impressionistic. As it is a 16-part suite, any kind of standard formal development scheme is out the window, and the mood is prevailingly quiet and mysterious with only very few eruptions of emotion. Nevertheless, it is a flexible structure that can be appreciated in short stretches or in the long form as a kind of otherworldly background music. Holliger's interest in the piece may be piqued in that it has a lot of great parts for his instrument, the oboe, and the winds are better handled here than in Segerstam's recording. Segerstam's version is a bit more direct and up front than Holliger's Hänssler, which is airy, distant, and quiet. However, this ambiance seems to serve the music a little better, as Segerstam's recording is not very transparent and rather bumbling at times. This release should be your top of the line choice for Les Heures Persanes, a work that should appeal strongly to those who like the quiet parts of Charles Ives' Central Park in the Dark or Dominic Frontiere's music for The Outer Limits.