Posthumous tributes and attention for Jean Fournet
This 29 July Miriam Jakes will receive the Watanabe Award in Tokio. She will do this on behalf of Jean Fournet, her late husband who died on 3 November 2008. From his debut in Japan in 1958 onwards Fournet had developed a special bond with this country. So much so that he is being paid special tributes posthumously here. Jean Fournet has been principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra from 1961 until 1978.
Premiere
The Watanabe Award has been presented almost annually to young Japanese conductors since 1992. The name giver, Akeo Watanabe, founded the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in 1956. Fournet led this orchestra in 1958 at the Japanese premiere of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. He regularly conducted the orchestra ever since and largely contributed to its development. As a special tribute to Fournet by great exception the Watanabe Award will be presented posthumously.
More tributes
Something similar had already happened on 8 November 2008, 5 days after Fournet’s death. Then the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra (TMSO) appointed the maestro “Permanent Honorary Conductor’’. Fournet had been permanent conductor of the TMSO from 1983 until 1986. In 1989 this orchestra had already appointed him ‘Honorary Conductor’.
Imperial knighthood
The appreciation of the conductor has been and still is great in Japan. He conducted all important Japanese orchestras. Already in 1986 Fournet had been made honorary citizen of Tokyo. In 2006 he had been awarded an imperial knighthood because of his great merits for cultural life in Japan. Some months ago, so also posthumously, the City of Tokyo declared him ‘conductor emeritus’.
Long career
Jean Fournet lived to be 95 and had a very long and world-wide career. Even at 90 he conducted the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan. Until 1957 he had mainly been active in his own country. Thus among other things he had been artistic director of the Paris Opéra Comique here. In the United States of America he made his debut in 1965 with the Chicago Lyric Opera with Ravels L’heure espagnole.
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra
In 1950 Fournet conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time. From this moment onwards his bond with The Netherlands started to grow. This became even stronger after his appointment as the principal conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in 1961. At his departure, in 1978, this orchestra honourably appointed him Chef d’Orchestre Permanent Invité.
French repertoire
In the meantime Fournet had been principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra for seven years. In America, elsewhere in Europe and especially in Japan he acquired an huge reputation too. His elegant interpretations of French repertoire in particular met with great appreciation everywhere. Not seldom he collaborated with the composers of contemporary works.
Dutch as well
Especially with symphonic works and operas from his native country the conductor generally earned a lot of success. With the broadcasting ensembles Dutch works has been often on the music stands too. In the course of time the maestro made numerous recordings. Of course French music has been strongly represented here as well. Fournet’s recordings of for example Fauré’s Requiem and Les pêcheurs de perle by Bizet met with great critical acclaim.
CDs
Today CDs with recordings led by Jean Fournet are still being released regularly. In 2007 Q Disc (97019) issued a box with 8 CDs and 1 DVD. This mainly contains French and Dutch repertoire by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. This year in Japan several discs will be released with music played by Japanese orchestras conducted by Fournet including the Symphony in d by César Fanck.
More CDs
This autumn the Netherlands Radio Music Library will start putting together a discography. Aim is to achieve a structured survey of all commercially released recordings by Dutch broadcasting ensembles. By coincidence an LP collection of recordings by the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will be mapped first. No doubt this includes material by Jean Fournet.
Order the set
on Q Disc 97019 for instance at:
www.hbdirect.com/album_detail.php?pid=977138
www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=7418239&style=classical
www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=168474
More CDs led by Jean Fournet:
www.arkivmusic.com/classical/albumList.jsp;jsessionid=53DDDEBD085E23DBF82DBCAF29B44BFD?name_id1=56928&name_role1=3&bcorder=3
Read more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Fournet
Laatste aanpassing op Tuesday 7 July 2009
