Yoshie Kaminaga: piano
Atsushi Ichinohe: flute
Yasuhiro Yamamoto: oboe
Shuhei Isobe: clarinet
Yuichi Tominari: french horn
Katsuhisa Ohtaki: bassoon
IN ORDER TO GET CLOSER TO A MORE ABUNDANT CONTENT
A Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet is a representative work among chamber compositions of Francis POULENC (1899-1963) as it activly profits from the abundant sound range of each instrument and expresses bright and shining colour. We can hear the passion that never looses coolness and witty ideas from every tone. And there is another point to enjoy with Poulenc: you can hear a parody of the great composers at every place. Take for example the opening part of the first movement and you recognize the begining of "Haffner symphony" of Mozart, or from another stand point you can hear the "Divertimento for Winds" of America's Persichetti employed the same way in the third movement in clarinets passages. Poulenc as well as the other composers of the "new generation" identified themselves as being in opposition to creators overloaded with sentiments of the German music theatre and all tried to free themselves from beautiful-style music that came to a deadlock. The European art is always preocupied with fight for how to make something different from the others. Therefore I think it is appropriate to listen to other Poulenc's compositions on this recording as to "new works handling a new sound by sextet" rather than to compositions for orchestra or piano rewritten for sextet.
The French Suite is a composition digging out the 16th century composer Claude Gervaise. Gervais mainly composed for four or five instruments. In making contemporary remakes of renaissance dances is Poulenc a man to admire. Tempo and bar division, as well as the articulation is rewritten completely in an old-fashioned way. This kind of experiment was followed by many modern composers who thus made possible performances of renaissance dances and even earlier music by big orchestras. What we should not miss in listening to music of Poulenc on this CD is not what he had done in piano or small orchestra version, but what a noble and clear sound comes out of the sextet version. It is a sheer joy.
Aubade can be translated as a "Morning Song". It was originally written as a ballet music in a piano sonata style. After the starting accompaniment, rather heavy, comes toccata of the solo piano in a pretty and free improvisation - like way. And the following recitative uses the same sound construction as Mahler's 7th symphony. In the middle of rondo he uses obviously the woodwind instruments accompaniment like Verdi did in his famous aria "The Beloved Name" in Rigoletto. In general we can see in all Poulenc's works one common idea the resemblance of "Carnival of the Animals" by his older companion Saint-Saens. Anyway there are many orchestra works of Poulenc with animal motives. What is interesting about Aubade are the abrupt changes of scenes without any previous introduction. He has already experienced movies where there is no need for gradual scene changes. That is probably why the composition all of a sudden ends in an absurdly tedious and gloomy manner.
Divertissement for wind quintet and piano from Albert ROUSSEL (1869-1937) is like Poulenc's sextet masterpiece of an original composition for these instruments and is in fact a sort of coupling of the work. It has a smaller range compared to Poulenc, but it is well done and the sound is compact. And I am convinced that this recording come out best of all preceding ones.
The last two works, the Fauré's Sicilienne and Pavane contain much of Gabriel FAURÉ's (1845-1924) feeling for sacred music. There is no concept of destruction, anger or confusion in his work. Even in his famous "Requiem" the "Dies irae" usually following "Kyrie" is ommitted. You can find an echo of exclamation Dies irae only within "Libera me". He is so close to God. In his every composition one feels love, compassion and prayer.
The basic idea of ORPHÉE is a true performance of a composition. But how to cope with the difference between original and arranged music? Imagine sixty members of an orchestra playing with a fully freed imagination. What a monumental performance it must come out but this happens only very rarely. On the other hand with only six players this happens very often. And it can compete with an orchestra in true touch of the idea, of the content of the work. And that is the reason why Orphée chose sextet configuration - in order to get closer to the content of compositions.
The value of this CD that it confronts with a real and true matter so basic for live performance as well as for recording.
