Albert Roussel

A French composer of ballet, orchestral, chamber, and piano music. Much of Roussel's work begins with detailed, intimate imagery and experiences, like the humor of an insect ballet in Le Festin d'Araignée or ancient dances in the tuneful and rhythmic Suite in F; but then he expands the music to vast seascapes or dramatic encounters. Roussel, like his fellow impressionists Debussy and Ravel, is able to build rich orchestrations from seed fragments that seem to grow and occupy intersecting planes of sound, as in the Symphony no. 3 and the Rapsodie flamande. However, his writing ...