Claude Debussy, Reynaldo Hahn, Anthony Girard: Floraisons

Daniel Gardiole
"Every opportunity for Daniel Gardiole to showcase the certainty of his choices, his boldness, his musical curiosity, as well as his extraordinary piano skills. - Music Education, June 2012
"A pianist with serene playing." - Jean-Marc Warszawszki, musicologie.org

Friedrich Nietzsche's famous aphorism, 'Life without music is simply a mistake, a weariness, an exile,' may seem somewhat simplistic. However, it perfectly summarizes the role that music has played in Daniel Gardiole's life from a very young age. For him, music is the source of his boundless energy and unwavering confidence in the future. It is through music that he quenches his thirst for discovery and expresses his deep sensitivity.
At the age of 8, Daniel began playing the piano. This instrument quickly became his best friend and playground. Creative and meticulous, he was captivated by composers of the 20th and 21st centuries, directing his musical projects towards this repertoire. Debussy, Dutilleux, Satie, Fauré, Ravel...
Creative and meticulous, fascinated by 20th and 21st-century composers, he directed his musical projects towards this repertoire. Debussy, Dutilleux, Satie, Fauré, Ravel... These composers accompanied him throughout his artistic education and then guided him in his professional endeavors. After completing his higher education in Paris under the guidance of Billy Eidi and obtaining the National Superior Diploma of Musician, he recorded a tribute album to Paul Loyonnet in 2012, in which he premiered Lucien Durosoir's "Aube Sonate d’été."
Throughout his journey, Daniel Gardiole has encountered strong musical personalities who have imparted values and skills to him. Among them, Anthony Girard holds a special place. Daniel has indeed premiered several of his works, including "La Rose et son Désir" at Salle Cortot in 2018, and "Rire ou rêver?" for two pianos, four hands, in 2019. It was in that same year that Anthony Girard dedicated "Étincellements" for two pianos, four hands, to Daniel, which he premiered in Paris. Dedicated to keeping classical music alive and passing it on, Daniel Gardiole places special emphasis on pedagogy, reflecting his love for teaching instilled by his own mentors. As a faculty member at the Claude Debussy Conservatory in Paris, his priority is to offer original and tailored projects for his students.

Mai Lan Morini
Mai Lan M., thirteen years old. Thirteen years, and already... nine spent at the piano, in front of those white and black keys—small, tightly nestled rectangles, with whites coated in ivorite, a faux ivory, and blacks plated in ebony. Keys that must be brought to life—first with tentative, too-small fingers, and now with greater mastery, even dynamism, drawing out the sounds that can move both people and, perhaps, even the stars.
Nine years already in front of this set of white and worn-down teeth, trying to make them smile, or even laugh, while taming the delicate mechanical precision of this Yamaha, meticulously crafted in Hamamatsu on Honshū, Japan’s main island, by master woodworkers. This instrument crossed oceans, like a tale from a fairy book, landing on her living room floor. A treasure of ivory, ebony, and craftsmanship, housed in an Aladdin's cave, where fifty-two wild whites and thirty-six wild blacks—spirited dancers—move in a sarabande under the fingers of a child.
“Mai Lan, have you practiced your piano?” her father often asks. He’s a bit insistent, this father, always reminding her. After all, at her age, aren't there more exciting things than hours spent toiling over eighty-eight keys? Is it reasonable to leave a young girl alone with such a mischievous black box, conjuring strange musical alchemies and magical spells? Hours spent before this music-making machine—an art both mysterious and enchanting... A large, lacquered black jewel box, where the world of childhood is evoked in pieces like "The Child and the Spells" or "The Wonders of the Sea." A box that also recalls the origins of jazz, where Black musicians, with African roots, birthed the radiant energy of the genre. Mai Lan, whose name means "apricot blossom" and "orchid" in Vietnamese, embodies the fusion of Tonkin, Finistère, and Lombardy—a reflection of modern France.
At four years old, barely as tall as three apples, perched on her stool, she met Daniel Gardiole, a Parisian of Caribbean descent, her first teacher. He taught her the basics, the ABCs of music, from do-re-mi to fa-sol-la. This marked the start of a long and affectionate student-teacher bond. With Daniel’s patient yet demanding guidance, Mai Lan made quick progress, entering the Maurice Ravel Conservatory at the age of eight, where she joined the class of Carine Zarifian. Carine, a dedicated and generous teacher, pushed Mai Lan to reach her potential, nurturing a close and supportive relationship with her.
Aspiring to become a sharp, well-rounded musician, Mai Lan has expanded her musical education by studying theory, harmony, improvisation, accompaniment, and chamber music. She has grown into a teenager—precocious and independent, much like the teens of today.
Daniel remains a steady presence in her life, not only as her teacher but as a confidant during difficult times, a kind and caring big brother figure, full of enthusiasm and ideas. As a devoted interpreter of Anthony Girard's piano works, it was Daniel who invited Mai Lan, in 2019, to record "The Wonders of the Sea" for the first time under the direction of the composer.
In 2022, they recorded together again, teacher and student walking side by side, continuing a joyful partnership under the watchful and supportive eye of Anthony. The highlight of this journey was the creation of "Floraison," a piece for four hands, born out of the composer’s generosity and nurtured by the deep friendship between the adult and the child—a bond sealed in music, forever.

Anthony Girard
Anthony Girard's musical language is distinguished by its emphasis on melodic design, lyricism, and arabesque. His harmony is modal, continually seeking refreshed hues; his rhythmic notation, at times obsessive, often settles within a timeless realm. The composer is fond of narrative structures, sometimes meditative, with dreamlike qualities. Rooted in the legacy of the French school, particularly in terms of harmonic and orchestral exploration, Anthony Girard's work was influenced in his younger years by diverse elements: medieval polyphony, traditional Indian music, and select minimalist works. These influences allowed him to craft a distinctive style, further enriched by readings of mystical and poetic texts. Through some of his inspirational themes, Girard seems drawn towards light, joy, and simplicity. However, this spiritual aspiration is rooted in nostalgia and unease, which also feed the emotional part of his language. Thus, his music stands between the disillusionment of the contemporary artist and the desire to share a still-possible experience of beauty.
Born in 1959, Anthony Girard pursued his studies at the National Conservatory of Paris, where, from 1980 to 1986, he secured five First Prizes in harmony, counterpoint, analysis, orchestration, and composition. Concurrently, he pursued a course in music history at the Sorbonne University, earning a DEA in 1985. From 1986 to 1988, he resided at the Casa de Velasquez in Madrid.
By 2023, his repertoire includes nearly two hundred and fifty compositions. He has collaborated with various ensembles such as the Radio-France Philharmonic Orchestra, the Colonne Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Lille, the Picardy Orchestra, the Bernard Calmel Orchestra, the À Ciel Ouvert ensemble, the Arpeggione Quartet, and the Carpe Diem ensemble. His compositions have been recorded numerous times, including twelve monographic albums: Œuvres orchestrales, Musique sacrée (Pavane), Le cercle de la vie, Behind the light (Naxos), Music for harpe (Harp&Co), Chemins couleur du temps (double CD Folle Avoine), Derniers instants avant la nuit (Hortus), Œuvres pour violon (Azur Classical) Éloge de la candeur, Effleurer le silence et Loin, toujours plus loin (Centre International Albert Roussel).
Since 2009, Anthony Girard has been teaching orchestration and musical analysis at the CRR of Paris and orchestration at the CNSMDP since 2012.

Claude Debussy: (b St Germain-en-Laye, 22 Aug 1862; d Paris, 25 March 1918). French composer. One of the most important musicians of his time, his harmonic innovations had a profound influence on generations of composers. He made a decisive move away from Wagnerism in his only complete opera Pelléas et Mélisande, and in his works for piano and for orchestra he created new genres and revealed a range of timbre and colour which indicated a highly original musical aesthetic.

Reynaldo Hahn (b Caracas, 9 Aug 1874; d Paris, 28 Jan 1947). French composer, conductor and writer of Venezuelan birth. Hahn's mother, Elena Maria Echenagucia, came from a Spanish family, established in Venezuela since the 18th century. His father, Carlos Hahn, was born in Hamburg and emigrated to South America as a young man. Reynaldo was the youngest of 12 children and was not quite four years old when the family moved to Paris. Hahn had already shown a talent for music in Caracas; once in France he began to play, making his début, aged six, at a musical soirée hosted by the Princesse Mathilde, niece of Napoleon I. Hahn entered the Paris Conservatoire in October 1885, where his teachers included Massenet. While there he made the acquaintance of Ravel, Cortot and Edouard Risler, and began to compose songs, among them one which brought him early fame, Si mes vers avaient des ailes. This was dedicated to his sister Maria, who had married the painter Raymundo de Madrazo. It was at their house that Hahn met many of the leading young artists of the time, including Daudet, for whose play L'obstacle Hahn composed incidental music when he was only 16.

Hahn's song cycle to poems by Verlaine, Chansons grises, was completed while he was still a student at the Conservatoire. The first performance was given by Sybil Sanderson, Massenet's favourite soprano, at Daudet's house, with Verlaine present. Even during the years after his death, when Hahn's music fell out of favour, ‘L'heure exquise’, the fifth song of the group, remained known. Hahn's own voice, a light baritone, was put to good use throughout his career; he accompanied himself in his own songs, and in opera arias and popular songs of the day. A collection of 20 of Hahn's songs, published by Heugel in 1895, increased his celebrity, so much so that the novelist and explorer Pierre Loti allowed Hahn to adapt his autobiographical Le mariage de Loti as the opera L'île du rêve. By the time this received its first performance at the Opéra-Comique in 1898, France had been divided by the Dreyfus affair. Hahn and his two closest friends, Marcel Proust and the actress Sarah Bernhardt, joined the Dreyfusard camp. This political turmoil affected the lives of everyone in France, even after 1906 when Dreyfus was finally cleared. Hahn, partly Jewish and fiercely attached to France, was deeply disturbed by this conflict.

Neither L'île du rêve, nor Hahn's second opera, La Carmélite, which was given a prestigious première with Emma Calvé in 1902, remained in the repertory. This disappointment meant that most of Hahn's music composed between 1902 and the outbreak of war in 1914 was not for the stage, although his ballet Le bal de Béatrice d'Este, conceived merely as a divertissement, has remained one of his best-known and most regularly performed pieces. During the 1900s his career as a conductor and critic gained momentum. He began to write for journals (he was critic for La presse from 1899, then for La flèche from 1904); as well as conducting concerts of his own music, he organized a Mozart Festival in Paris, and was invited to conduct Don Giovanni at Salzburg. Although he continued to compose and publish songs, notably the cycle Etudes latines in 1900, his most extensive work from this period is the sequence of piano pieces gathered under the title Le rossignol éperdu (1902–10). A Proustian ethic seems to drive the music, with its evocations and memories of places and impressions. After long neglect, there was a revival of interest in Hahn's instrumental music in the 1990s.

Hahn took French nationality in 1909 and, at the outbreak of war in 1914, volunteered for the army (although he was over the official age limit for conscription). He served as a private, and was eventually promoted to corporal. While at the front he composed the cycle of five songs on poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, and began to sketch his opera based on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

Hahn's greatest commercial success as a composer dates from the early 1920s. Returning to Paris after the war, and following the deaths of Proust and Bernhardt, Hahn composed Ciboulette, a nostalgic evocation of 19th-century Paris, set in the old market of Les Halles. This was a huge success, and was followed by the musical comedy about the adventures of the young Mozart in Paris, created for Yvonne Printemps (wife of the playwright Sacha Guitry) who acted and sang the role of the composer. Mozart, although tailored for the Guitrys, has been revived several times, as has a second collaboration with Guitry, O mon bel inconnu.

In the late 1920s Hahn composed what became his best-known concert work, a piano concerto, which was given its first performance by Magda Tagliaferro, who subsequently recorded it with the composer. Hahn's only major commission for the Paris Opéra was Le marchand de Venise. Although it was received with some enthusiasm, and had several revivals, Hahn's mixture of light, operetta-like music for the romantic scenes and his dramatic declamatory style for Shylock is problematic.

Because of his Jewish ancestry, Hahn's music was banned by the Nazis during the occupation of France (1940–44), and the elderly composer spent the war years partly in hiding, but still working on songs, instrumental music, and his final work for the stage, Le oui des jeunes filles, which was first performed posthumously.

At the end of the war, when Hahn returned to Paris (he had eventually settled in Monte Carlo), he was appointed director of the Opéra and during his tenure there he conducted an important revival of Méhul's Joseph, and gave his last concerts, with Tagliaferro and Ninon Vallin, one of his favourite sopranos, with whom he had recorded several of his own songs before the war.