Approached by the Lemoine publishing house, Roussel composed his Vocalise No. 1 in 1927 for their collection, L'Art du chant: Recueil de vocalises modernes (Paris, 1928). The venture into this suddenly modish genre having been happy, he accepted a commission from Leduc in 1928 for his Vocalise No. 2, included in their Répertoire moderne de vocalises (Paris, 1930). Where the First Vocalise seems to limn a brief but darkly tinged drama, Vocalise No. 2 accepts the genre's invitation to indulge uninhibited sensuous beauty, which it does with winning blithesomeness, in simple ABA form, playing around two minutes—a perfect musical morsel which charms without a hint of the quirky muscularity of other works appearing at the same time, for instance, the Piano Concerto, the Little Suite, the Trio for flute, viola, and cello. While a hit from its première, given by the dedicatee, Règine de Lormoy, with pianist Pierre Maire, 13 April 1929, its continued popularity, even as Roussel's reputation faded outside France in the wake of World War II, owes largely to Arthur Hoérée's several arrangements—for oboe, clarinet, etc.—as well as to his chamber orchestra arrangement of the piano accompaniment (for the delicate, exquisitely colored combination of flute, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, horn, celesta, triangle, harp, and string quintet), in which recension it is called Aria No. 2, first heard from Régine de Lormoy, again (who, by the way, was married to Hoérée), and a scratch ensemble led by Fernand Quinet at a Roussel Festival in Charleroi, 17 December 1930. Hoérée (1897-1986), a musical man of all work, was one of the most ardent of Roussel's admirers in his generation of rising young composers—including Poulenc, Milhaud, Delage, Ibert, Tansman, and his friend, Honegger—and wrote the first full-length biography, Albert Roussel (Paris: Rieder, 1938). Though himself an ambitious composer—of ballets, incidental music, and an experimental Septet for mezzo, flute, strings, and piano—he is remembered, if at all, for his close involvement with the music of others as an indefatigable arranger, organizer, critic, apologist, conductor, and proponent. Ibert and Honegger enjoyed his attentions as an arranger, while his recreation of the lost celesta part of Debussy's music to accompany the recitation of Pierre Louÿs' Chansons de Bilitis was accomplished with the sure touch of one who knew the idiom. Throughout a long life, Hoérée continued to draw on his close friendship with Roussel to promote and explicate his works when they had fallen out of fashion.

© Adrian Corleonis, All Music Guide