This album gathers together a series of works of the twentieth-century French school. One of the specificities of these scores is found in the works’ genesis, and in particular in the unusual choice of this ensemble. It is rather uncommon to associate the flute and the bassoon alone in chamber music, even though there are famous examples, e.g. Beethoven and Donizetti. Thinking of the harp as a replacement for the piano is an innovation which we could define as very “French” in taste. Different works are therefore found here, born under a “nationalizing” influence, so that one can perceive an extremely French flavor. Even in the most “exotic” pieces, such as Pierre Vellones’ Impressions d’Espagne, we find the compositional and harmonic taste of the French school. The chosen repertoire includes the piece which is probably the best known among those written for this particular ensemble, i.e. André Jolivet’s Pastorales de Noël. Some of the pieces offered here are world premiere recordings.
Pierre Vellones was a French composer born in 1889 who died in Paris in 1939. He studied music privately. Following in his father’s footsteps, he also completed his studies as a MD, and practiced this profession throughout his life. While he was crossing the village of Velosnes, he was conquered by the absolute poetry of the site of Meusan, and took inspiration from it for his pen-name as a composer. Florent Schmitt, from whom he took advice, judiciously encouraged him to persevere in music. His lively intellectual curiosity led him to experience all arts and genres. He wrote instrumental music as well as mélodies for voice and piano. Even if he did not collect triumphs on stage, he had his share of success, writing scores for several documentaries and for more than fifteen movies. This musician, literate, painter and doctor synthesizes the spirit of the period between the two World Wars, whereby tradition and innovation coexisted harmoniously. He was sincerely appreciated by Stravinsky, Ravel and Poulenc. In 1934, influenced by a recent journey to Andalusia, Vellones – who usually painted several watercolors during his travels – wrote two piano pieces which he would transcribe, the following year, for harp, flute and bassoon. These are precisely the two Impressions d’Espagne: two musically very successful pieces, on the plane of both timbre and expression. Exoticism and a multicolored sound research are the interpretive keys for these two pages of a rare and refined beauty.
Born in Paris from a family of artists, André Jolivet studied cello, and later composition, with Paul Le Flem, with whom he focused on the study of harmony and counterpoint. He began to take an interest in atonality after hearing Arnold Schönberg’s music in concert. Following the advice of his former teacher, he became the only European student of Edgard Varèse. With him, he deepened his knowledge of musical acoustics, atonal compositional systems, and orchestration. Already at that time, his compositional philosophy started to reveal itself: the idea of giving back to music its archaic meaning, when it was connected to esoteric and religious phenomena; this would enable the recovery of an emotional side which is strictly bound to the ritual aspect. Jolivet founded the Centre Français d’Humanisme Musical in 1959 in Aix-en-Provence, and, in 1965, he was appointed a Professor of Composition at the Conservatory of Paris. He would die in his native city in 1974.
Pastorales de Noël is a work for flute, bassoon and harp written by Jolivet in 1943; this piece, generally delicate and evocative, brings back a mental state reminiscent of antiquity.
Bernard Andrès is a French composer and harpist who was born in Belfort in 1941. He widened the repertoire for classical and Celtic harp, in particular employing the “effects” that can be produced by these instruments’ different components. Andrès initially studied at the Conservatories of Besançon and Strasbourg. He later continued his harp studies at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris. He entered as a soloist into the ranks of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France in 1969, and remained there as principal harpist until 2005. Following the publication of his pieces, Narthex and Parvis, he acquired fame also as a composer. His Souvenir de Breteuil composed in 1989 required, in its earlier version, the oboe instead of the flute. The composer himself realized an arrangement for harp, flute, and bassoon, dedicated to the Paris Concert Trio. Breteuil is a French city numbering about 4000 inhabitants, in the Department of Oise, in the region of Hauts-de-France. The city was practically wiped out by the Germans in 1940. Andrès’ dances evoke the old splendor of the ancient town, when it still was a small architectonic gem, inside whose palaces feasts and balls were celebrated.
As a gifted pupil, Théodore Dubois studied at Paris Conservatoire obtaining many honors, including the first prize at the Grand Prix de Rome in 1861. Back to France after his stay in Rome, he began a constantly and progressively ascending career. Appointed a Professor of Harmony at the Conservatoire since 1871, ten years later he became a Professor of Composition, and still later he was appointed Director from 1896 until his retirement in 1905. In parallel with these activities, he had various appointments as a church musician, in particular as an organist at the Church of the Madeleine (1877-1896). While remaining faithful to his ideals of clarity and respect for tradition, Dubois was sensitive to his time’s evolution, as demonstrated by his adhesion to the Société nationale de musique. His Deux pieces en forme canonique published in 1900 by Heugel in Paris are two short pieces written in the academic and traditional fashion, but with a taste for the typical harmonies of the Belle-Époque. Several versions, all directly created by the composer, exist: the first edition, conceived for oboe, cello and piano, contains a composer’s note, admitting the replacement of the oboe by the flute or violin, and of the cello by the bassoon or clarinet. The best known and most performed version, until now, is that for oboe, cello and strings (1901).
Charles-Édouard Lefebvre was a French composer born in Paris in 1843. He studied law first, and later entered the Conservatoire of Paris in the class of Ambroise Thomas; for a short time, he was taught also by Charles Gounod. In 1870 he won the Grand Prix de Rome with his cantata Le Jugement de Dieu. After his stay in Villa Medici, he journeyed through Italy, Greece and Turkey, nourishing his marked taste for the Eastern, whose traces are found in his works. In 1895 he became Professor of Chamber Music at the Conservatoire of Paris, directed, before him, by Benjamin Godard. Lefebvre composed many chamber music works: sonatas, duos, trios, quartets, but also symphonies, overtures, suites and mélodies, along with a psalm for choir and orchestra, a lyrical drama and some oratorios. His Ballade for flute, cello and piano (1908) is dedicated to flutist Adolphe Hennebais, one of the best-known flutists of the Belle-Époque. It is a fascinating work, full of lyricism, evoking the romantic and nostalgic settings of the Parisian fin-de-siècle. It is presented here in a version for flute, bassoon and harp arranged by the musicians of the Phainé Ensemble.
Henri Gagnebin studied piano with Auguste Laufer and harmony with Justin Bischoff. In 1905 he spent eight months in Berlin, during which he studied composition with Richard Rössler. In 1908 he went to the Schola Cantorum of Paris, where he studied the organ with Abel Decaux and Louis Vierne, piano with Blanche Selva and composition with Vincent d’Indy. He spent eight years in the French capital, where he was the titular organist of the Lutheran Church of the Redemption. In 1925, he was appointed the director of the Geneva Conservatoire. In 1938, following the advice given to him by Frédéric Liebstöckl (a Viennese who had just arrived in Geneva and who was an expert in the organization of festivals) he founded the International Competition for Music Performance in Geneva, which he presided until 1959. As a composer, Gagnebin approached all genres except operas. He wrote four symphonies, two ballets, a trio, four quartets, a very high number of works for instruments in various ensembles, four piano toccatas, a piano Concerto, more than a hundred works on Huguenot Psalms, two Church Sonatas and various organ pieces. His Pastorale for wind trio and harp is a rather youthful piece, written when the composer was thirty, shortly after the end of the first World War. Chromatic harmonies, folklike themes, and timbral research are the principal features of this work, where the winds enter in dialogue with each other accompanied by the harp’s sweet touch. The piece is dedicated to the Swiss composer Louis Piantoni and was premiered, in all likelihood, by harpist Marcel Grandjany and flutist René Le Roy among others, at the Society of Chamber Music for Winds in Paris.
Paul Lacombe was a French composer active in Paris between the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1871, Lacombe became one of the founding members of the National Society, where he frequently had his works performed. Starting in the years following the 1870 war, he continued writing trios, symphonies, quartets, and numerous piano works. In 1887 the Académie des Beaux-Arts awarded him the Prix Chartier for his chamber music. His works were regularly performed at the concerts of Colonne and Pasdeloup. In 1901 he was elected a corresponded of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and promoted as a Knight of the Légion d’Honneur in 1902. His Dialogue sentimental is a very short and delicate work for Trio.
In its original version it was conceived for flute, bassoon and piano, but other versions exist, replacing the flute with the violin and the bassoon with the cello. The text written at the score’s beginning in Bruyères is “Calme, doucement expressif”. Claude Debussy’s piece begins very similarly to La fille aux cheveux de lin; it is indeed as linear and melodic as the other, even though technically more complex. Its calm and sweetly melancholic music recalls landscapes of tranquil and lonely moorlands. It is included in the collection of Préludes (Second Book) for solo piano. Here we can listen to a very delicate and refined version, written for trio in 2020 and dedicated to flautist Filippo Mazzoli by the German composer and conductor Andreas-Luca Beraldo. The score was published in the same year by the Impronta publishing company in Mannheim, Germany.
Filippo Mazzoli © 2021