Marc-André Dalbavie is one of the more visible French composers of his generation and as such he is able to draw upon musicians of real distinction.
Indeed, he could hardly hope for better live performances than those on this recording.
The latter point is eloquently made by Eiichi Chijiiwa, who handles the many bravura passages of the Violin Concerto's solo part seemingly effortlessly. So it is disconcerting to turn to the music and find so little of substance.
Dalbavie can certainly write for show: in his hands the orchestra has a glitzy patina, at times reminiscent in its allure of film music, and the soloist in the Concerto has much to do. The composer/ conductor knows the repertoire of modernist orchestral and ensemble scores very well, and in not a few instances one can even identify specific works that he references; the problem is that this isn't done it seems in any playful spirit of postmodernism. Perhaps his signature (an element that occurs in all three scores) is the unfolding of slow, steady scalar passages, or of chords whose tessituras gradually ascend or descend, expand or contract. These simple gestures may betoken the accessibility to which he aspires (according to the booklet-notes) but the end result is a kind of modernism-lite, likely to frustrate as many listeners as it flatters.