Orchestral Works (La course de printemps & Le buisson ardent )

"A shadowy figure in French music, Charles Koechlin comes from the same generation as Debussy, Ravel and Satie, but his music has unmistakable individuality, one that he continued to developed long after the deaths of his three celebrated contemporaries. La course de printemps draws its inspiration from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book and the symphonic poem Le buisson ardent takes as its starting point Roman Rolland's Jean-Christophe, a novel about spiritual rebirth."
Editor's Choice Gramophone Magazine April 2003

After performing "La course de printemps" and "Les bandar-log" from the Jungle Book with the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, it was very important to me to find a sequel. "Le buisson ardent" is like the other side of the coin to "La course de printemps" and was much later stage of Koechlin´s life.

After outbreak of World War II Koechlin had hardly composed anymore and fell into kind of paralysis. With "Le buisson ardent" the former near-graphomaniac, who had filled hundreds of pages every day and then only made gradual recovery with short solo pieces, suddenly became creative again.

Especially the first part of "Le buisson ardent" mirrors this rebirth. On the other hand "Le course de printemps" is almost a hymn to the power of youth." (from an interview with Heinz Holliger)

Heinz Holliger is one of the most versatile and unusual musicians of our times. Born in Langenthal (Switzerland) in 1939, he studied oboe, piano and composition in Bern, Paris and Basel. The SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart has been working closely together with Heinz Holliger for many years.